


Crooked Little House

by maichan, MurphyAT



Series: Crooked Little House [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Animal Transformation, Artist Steve Rogers, Asexual Natasha Romanov, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Demisexual Bucky Barnes, Domestic, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, First Time, Folklore, Ghosts, Home Renovation, Identity Porn, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Outsider, POV Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Slow Burn, Sort Of, and they were ROOMMATES, so much slice of life it's practically pie of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 60,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27921166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maichan/pseuds/maichan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurphyAT/pseuds/MurphyAT
Summary: Steve Rogers bought a beautiful old fixer-upper from its oddly hasty owners, eager to make it his new home, only to discover it came with a feral cat and an angry ghost who wanted him gone. But Steve had never met a challenge he didn't like, and he wasn't going anywhere.Bucky Barnes, the only domovoi in New York, could not believe those idiot kids sold their ancestral home and left him useless in its hearth. Now he had some tiny asshole invading it and tearing it apart—but even weakened, he had a few tricks that would surely scare any human off. Any human, that was, except Steve.~A story of the magic in the restoration of heart(h) and home, a very grumpy and very adorable Bucky, and the tiny stubborn man he couldn't help but fall in love with.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Minor Natasha Romanov/Clint Barton
Series: Crooked Little House [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083650
Comments: 94
Kudos: 372
Collections: Not Another Stucky Big Bang 2020, stucky





	1. Steve Ain't Afraida No Ghost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luddleston](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luddleston/gifts).



> I'm so excited to put this story out at last! I had this idea years ago and now it's getting a chance to breathe on its own. 
> 
> I got the title for this fic from an old English nursery rhyme, ‘There was a Crooked Man’:  
> “There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.  
> He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.  
> He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,  
> and they all lived together in a little crooked house.”
> 
> Huge buckets of thanks go to my artist, [Mai](https://maichan808.tumblr.com), whose art for this story made me run around screaming when I first saw it, and my beta, [Teej](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_or_something/), for being such a responsive, encouraging, and steady presence for me to lean on. Serious kudos to the NASBB mods for running and managing such a smooth, fun event and fostering a community of compassionate folx that I desperately needed to get through this year.  
> I'm so grateful for my irl friends for listening, brainstorming, and supporting me while I wrote this and went just a little crazy.
> 
> I'll be posting every day at around 6-8PM EST till Friday!

_Fucking are you fucking even goddamn kidding me with this shit._

Bucky was used to being ignored. He was used to never getting porridge, or incense, or tobacco, or any fucking food at all. He was used to the family ruining the walls and floors and even the goddamn _hearth_ , like the gods-less Christians they were. But this? Selling the home their great-great-grandparents invited him into practically the day they stepped off the boat from Russia? This was beyond the pale. This would have him up and banging around the house every night for the next year. 

He’d been a little lax the past five years with no one really living here, let more things slide than a good domovoi would. Clearly the household had paid the price for his neglect. If by “paid the price”, you mean “turned into even more ungrateful shits”. 

Even so, it was an embarrassing situation. It shifted quickly from an embarrassing situation to a crisis the day the moving trucks came. 

Bucky had been in this family for seven upon seven generations, moving from home to home, village to village, province to province, till he took the long and tiring journey to America in 1911 to this very house. 

He was comfortable here—or, as comfortable as a domovoi could be, neglected and insulted as he was. He wasn’t used to moving houses anymore, and he didn’t know this land as he had the last. He didn’t know the spirits in it, and he often wondered if he was the only one of his kind in the whole giant gods-forsaken country. 

This family was all he had ever had. Though now it had dwindled to just these two poor modern idiots, and though they barely ever slept in the house anymore, Bucky stuck with them. He had trained worse humans into keeping proper house, and he was loyal. But…it chilled him a bit, their attitude. What if they forgot to invite him along to the new hearth? What would happen to him if they left him behind entirely? Could domovoi even survive without a house to guard? His thoughts spiraled into a fierce wind and the cupboards flapped loudly, pots rattling in their odd ceiling cage.

“Oh my god, Naomi, the domovoi is freaking out again. What did Mimi say to do?” called the youngest son, Aaron, a man of nineteen who in high school had regularly infuriated Bucky by leaving cold pizza slices on the floor of his room. 

Bucky threw a broom at him for the rudeness of naming him outright, and Aaron yelped, dodging to the floor as soon as he saw it appear to float on its own. 

“Naomiiiiiii!”

Bucky rolled his eyes at the dramatics. As if he would ever _actually_ hurt his householder.

Naomi walked in with a stack of boxes and nearly tripped over her brother. “Aaron, get up off the floor and help me pack the truck.”

Aaron scrambled up and pointed at the broom, which had rattled to the floor. “What are we gonna do about the domo—“

Bucky pointedly picked up the dustpan. 

Aaron backtracked with appreciable speed, “—the uh, him?”

Bucky set it back down, gratified. Both siblings watched it settle warily. 

Naomi shoved a box into Aaron’s hands. “Nothing. We’re packing the place up. We don’t have to do anything with him anymore.”

“But—Mimi said—!” 

“Mimi’s dead, Aaron, and the house is a burden. The house and everything in it. We need to move on.”

 _Well, fuck._

Bucky grimaced. That…did not sound good. He sent the tower of boxes in the hallway toppling out of principle. 

———————————————————————————————

“I’m telling ya, Sam, this place is great. Got a covered porch and that classic early 20th century structure—”

Sam’s laugh interrupted his distracted babbling. Steve moved the phone to his shoulder, shifting the U-Haul’s gear into park. “20th century structure? So, it’s falling apart.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Ha ha. Sure, it’s a fixer-upper, but I got it for a steal, uh, given the condition…for its age.”

Sam groaned, but Steve could practically hear his teeth as he grinned on the other side of the line. “I can see the headlines now: ‘Ghost or Grout?’—subhead, ‘Local New Yorker Dies in Classic 20th Century Home’.”

Steve shut the truck door and looked up at the front of his new-old house, laughing helplessly. “Shut up, ya doof, I already signed the dotted line, so it’s too late anyway.”

He paused, breathing in the late spring air, and took the house in. It was a bit more than a fixer-upper: the paint completely worn away to gray wood, windows nearly opaque with rime, and the roof bald of its original shingles. Most people would call it barely livable, but Steve already felt a fondness for the character of the house welling up in him. 

He’d always had a thing for old things. 

“I can tell you’re there, because you stopped laughing at my hilarious jokes. I’ll let you go so you can settle in your grandpa house, okay?” 

“Sure, sure. You know us old folks. We like everything to be just right. Bye, Sam,” he said, and hung up with his friend still laughing. 

It took the better part of the day to get his things moved in, despite getting there at seven in the morning. His friends, the Wilsons, and his Ma had all offered to help him move in, but he’d insisted on doing this part alone. And anyway, all his heavy stuff—appliances, books, furniture—was still in a storage container waiting for the house to be closer to done. He’d separated what he could into smaller boxes when he packed them, so he took what felt like a million trips and more than a few puffs on his inhaler, but he finally got it all in. The feeling of pride and accomplishment at finishing on his own was worth the pain he’d wake up to in the morning. 

The previous family had left all their very old lawn decor…kinda rude, but none of it was offensive enough to annoy him. No flamingos or large nude statues, just a birdbath and some broken stone benches peeking from under a veil of weeds and overgrown bushes. It did seem a little odd that he got it for as little as he did, but Steve Rogers was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Some people just didn’t know the value of what they had. 

He took one step into the living room and stopped short. 

There was a brown tabby cat on the pile of boxes by the fireplace. It was _huge_ —maybe a third Steve’s size—and very, very angry. Steve didn’t remember anyone mentioning a cat as part of the deal. He took another step forward. The tabby hissed loudly, and lashed its tail like a whip. 

“Hey, kitty, kitty,” he murmured, trying to appear as gentle as possible, leaning low with his thin frame and crouching below the box’s level. The cat did not appear appreciative, hissing again, tail standing straight up. It looked like it might attack at any moment, but was insistent against giving any ground.

Generally, when one finds an angry animal in one’s new house (for a given value of the word new, and also the word house), one calls animal control. Or, at the very least, a helpful friend, perhaps one who had that very same day expressed concern at the state of one’s living space ( _ahem_ ). 

Steve did not do this. 

Instead, Steve watched it silently, keeping his eyes on its feet so as to avoid challenging it. He lifted his hand up closer to it and stayed completely still for enough minutes to get a charlie horse in his right thigh. The cat growled at him in a pitchy warble. 

Steve stayed perfectly still, hands and legs shaking, feeling like an idiot, but also… Also he felt a weird warmth towards the cat. It was territorial, unapologetic, proud, and angry. Steve could respect that. That was the core set of emotions he felt about anything he really loved, whether it was his ma or his childhood neighborhood in Dumbo. 

Slowly, the hisses and growls petered down to nothing. Steve looked up to find the cat laying down on the box tower and simply staring at his hand. Like it was a pouch of catnip. Or a bee. (It was difficult to tell, with cats.) Steve hoped for the sake of his fingers that it was the former. 

He snuck them a little closer. No response. 

Closer. A slight narrowing of the eyes, but no sudden violence. 

His hand was very close now, and the giant cat (what breed was it? Steve didn’t know cats came in McDonalds’ Super Size) had to cross its eyes to keep staring at it. If he had to name the expression it wore, he’d call it a “what the fuck is this” face. He suppressed an inconvenient urge to giggle and bridged the last few inches to gently stroke its head. 

It was very warm.

It jerked back to a sitting position, ears somehow conveying extreme offense had been taken, and disappeared up the stairs. Steve stood gradually, wincing at the ache in his back and legs from keeping the same position for so long. For a cat. Who hated him. 

_Great decision making, Steve._

Somehow, even though it hadn’t ended with happy purring, he felt oddly determined to keep trying. This cat had been abandoned, it appeared, with the same lack of concern the previous owners had felt for their furniture. Steve had bought the house and everything in it, cupboards to cobwebs. As far as he was concerned, he had a cat now.

Oh.

Oh, shit. Steve had a _cat_ now.

Steve had never owned a cat. As a child he was allergic to pretty much everything, so Ma had avoided pets just out of hand as a safety precaution, and this was the first place he’d moved to where there weren’t any apartment pet policies to worry about. Suffice it to say, he didn’t exactly know how to take care of a cat. Let alone how to get one to like him, in order to then take care of it. 

This called for expert help.

Steve: **Hypothetically, how do I get a cat to like me? Also what are cat breeds even**

Nat: **steven.**

Nat: **did u purchase a cat.**

Nat: **is that what ur trying to tell me.**

Steve: **This is a hypothetical scenario**

Steve: **Answer the question**

Nat: **a hypothetical scenario that u need immediate help with** 🤔

Nat: **y do u think id know about cats anyway**

Nat: **I only know about pizza dogs** 🍕🐶🍕🍕

Steve: **Because you kinda act like a cat?**

Nat: 🙀 **thats offensive. Im offended.** 😾

Steve: **…you’re proving my point.**

Nat: **u get cats to like u the same way u get girls to like u**

Nat: **ignore them** 😂😂😂

Steve: **But I need to feed it and stuff. Right?**

Nat: **no steve cats live on pure spite do u know nothing**

Steve: **This is less productive than I hoped.**

Nat: 😫 **rude.**

Nat: **see if I ever give u my wisdom again**

Nat: 😭😭😭😭

Nat: **u ungrateful** 🐷

Steve: **omg, Nat.**

Nat: **just go ask the shelter people u doofus**

Steve: **Oh, thanks.**

Nat: ✌️

Okay, less expert than expected. Time to google up some shelters. And maybe a PetSmart, because he did not want to think about where that giant cat was pooping.

The closest no-kill shelter he found was set up in an old theater and had “Meow Playing” lit up on the marquee. Steve didn’t know whether to hate it with all his New York soul or find it adorably clever, which was par for the course in the hipster parts of Brooklyn now. 

It was surprisingly bright inside, and smelled like lemon Lysol and nail polish. The likely culprit, a receptionist with her name tag on upside down, was painting her nails a searing shade of aqua blue. Steve squinted at the tag. “Darcy?” he ventured.

She hummed, not looking up from the brush (Steve understood. She was on the pinky nail, which was always a tricky bastard to get right). “Yeah, dude, what’s up?”

“…I have some cat questions?” he said.

Darcy looked up, and startled a little, a few strands of black hair falling out of her messy bun. “Oh! Omg, you’re adorable.”

Steve’s mouth twisted to the side. He knew it was meant as a compliment, but it was the one that made him feel the least like himself. “Uh, thanks. Know anything about cat breeds? I found a cat in my house and I have no idea what to do with it.”

Darcy capped her nail polish and waved her hands around to dry them. “Hellzyeah. Draw near, all ye cat lovers, help me pick some pamphlets up, these babies are still wet.”

Steve laughed despite himself and walked around the desk. She was pointing to the middle drawer of a filing cabinet. He opened it and then looked up expectantly. 

“Okay, little hunk, I’m not psychic. What’s your cat look like?”

“Uh, angry?” he laughed ruefully, and swept his hair to the side. “It’s a tabby. And really big, like maybe two feet tall. It’s got a bit of a mane…”

Darcy snapped her fingers. “A Maine Coon! Dude, those are so cool. Oh shit, my nails.”

She uncapped the bright blue polish again. “Look under M, there should be some stuff for Maine Coons. My uncle had one of those, it was like the chillest Mufasa-cat. Super playful when he got to know you enough; pretty much the best cat choice. So, you know, good job, and stuff.”

While she was talking, Steve flipped through the files—Munchkin, Minskin, Manx, Maine Coon. He took a copy of each brightly colored handout in the file. “That’s…I dunno. Doesn’t sound like my cat. He was really aggressive. Are they territorial at all? Or maybe—can cats get separation anxiety? I think the old owners of my house left him behind.”

Darcy paused on her last nail patch up, eyes narrowed. “That’s terrible. Have you asked them about it? Maybe they’re like, super forgetful. It’s still shitty though. They probably don’t deserve a cat.”

Steve wasn’t sure what deserving had to do with having pets, but he _maybe_ should have thought to call the sellers before deciding he owned their likely very expensive purebred cat. The childish part of him that had felt a kinship with it the second he felt its fur, the part that had been wanted a pet at 5 years old and never understood the particular health complications that stood in the way…that part of Steve was not particularly interested in looking a gift cat in the mouth. 

He sighed. Being a mature adult sucked. 

Steve thumped into the house with his arms chock full of pet supplies, and felt like an idiot dropping them on the tower of unpacked boxes still blocking the fireplace. It looked like they had been used as a scratching post by a hellhound—or hellcat, more appropriately. 

It had only been a day or two since moving in; still, he felt lazy and unsettled. His parents used to flip houses like this all the time, and they always said the first week was the most important to set a good work routine. 

“Nothin’ for it,” Steve muttered to himself, and started on the boxes. 

It took the rest of the day to unpack completely, what with all of the tools and paints his ma had donated to the cause. By the time he could sit down to mow through a few turkey and spinach wraps, his back was killing him and he had three missed calls and a text message from an unknown number. He unwrapped an icy-hot patch and scrolled through them. 

A call this morning from his ma, probably wanting renovation progress pictures and/or selfies of him smiling (those requests were usually answered with selfies of him frowning aggressively, which caused his mother to send her own, usually frowning even more aggressively. It made both of them cackle and everyone else a little confused). Natasha had called at 2am, probably to regale him with another Clint-Barton-is-a-trash-fire tale. There was a voicemail from Pepper about a new furniture commission, and he wrote a note on his “Work Shit” checklist to call her with some ideas tomorrow. 

The text message simply said: **Meow**

Steve: **I would say ‘new phone who dis’, but it’s not actually a new phone. I just don’t know you.**

Unknown: **How wude!!**

Unknown: **There’s no way you, tiny hunk, forgot me, bodacious goddess**

Unknown: **And also we bonded over cats, so you know it’s real**

Steve: **Darcy?**

Unknown: **Ding ding!**

Steve: **How did you even get my number?**

Darcy: **I am an information wizard**

Steve: **Ah. So, Google stalking.**

Darcy: **Nah I’m old school**

Darcy: **How’s your furry friend?**

Steve: **Still acting un-Maine-Coon-like. Still hates me.**

Darcy: **Aw :’( you poor deprived soul**

Darcy: **You should give him some toys!!!**

Steve: **I actually bought some… He found them and followed me around to glare at me for an hour while I unpacked.**

Darcy: **Omg too cute**

Darcy: **If he’s following you it means he wants to keep tabs! Adorable**

Steve: **Or he wants to know where I am to murder me.**

Darcy: **> :( No way**

Darcy: **Give him time to get used to a new person in his space and you will be best buds!!!**

Steve: **Ok thanks**

He tossed his phone on the card table with a grimace and stood up to stretch, the patch finally starting to loosen his tense muscles. Darcy was…a little much for Steve, all at once. He liked his privacy, though he liked letting the people he trusted in, but still—there was a fundamental step of _choosing_ to do that, which she’d just decided to skip right over. 

He heard the clatter of something metal crashing to the floor upstairs, and considered Darcy’s advice. All the handouts had said Maine Coons were playful, patient, and fairly friendly. He was beginning to think _this_ Maine Coon had been dropped on his head into the river Styx as a kitten, because the closest thing to playful Steve’d seen from him was the time he tried to push over a ladder while Steve was trying to get on it. 

He hadn’t figured out a name for the cat yet. It didn’t feel right to name something that hated you; it was presumptuous. But a name would keep. Steve would get this cat to like him. It would happen. They would be _best. Buds._

Sam choked on his mocha, set it down, and waved his hands. “No, wait, wait, stop. Steve. Steven. You moved in to a shitty house one week ago, and now you have a fixer-upper _cat_ too? Tell me how this doesn’t exhibit a deeply flawed hero complex.”

“No one appreciates a psychoanalyzer,” he said.

Sam made a buzzer noise. “Wrong. I’m loved and appreciated by all.”

“Oh, did your momma tell you that?” Steve asked with a mock show of pity, eyebrows tented in concern. 

“Steven Grant Rogers, did you just Yo Momma _my_ mama? Tell me you did not just. Darlene Wilson is a respectable woman.”

“With a mean uppercut, too,” Steve added, grinning.

Sam nodded with a theatrical grimace. “The meanest in Harlem. She’ll have to show you some time. But we were talking about you, and your broken ass old house, and your broken ass new house cat. So what, you just, found it in your bushes and decided he was the one?”

“Ahhhh,” Steve hesitated, and felt his mouth twist to the side. “More like…he confronted me from a tower of boxes. I think my first reaction was like, dear God, who let that bobcat in.”

“Jeez-us, how big is the motherfucker?” he asked. 

Steve estimated with his hands. Sam swore loudly. 

“Okay, so how did you take the leap from ‘unwanted bobcat’ to ‘personal responsibility’. Is this like. That scene in the kids dragon movie, what’s it called, the one you wouldn’t shut up about—”

“How to Train Your Dragon,” he provided. Sam snapped and pointed in confirmation.

“I can totally see you doing that dumb trusting head touch the kid uses. Tell me you did not do this.”

Steve felt very seen. It was extremely uncomfortable. He twisted his mouth to the side and shrugged, “In my defense, it worked.”

“You _asshole_!” Sam yelled, delighted. “I can’t believe you used cartoon movie tactics to get close to a rabid bobcat instead of calling animal control.”

Steve counted off on his fingers. “It’s not rabid, it’s not a bobcat, and there’s no guarantee that animal control would take it to a no-kill shelter. I’m not gonna send a cat to die just because he’s a little angry.”

Sam raised his hands, placating, “I gotchu. That’s admirable, but honestly—aren’t you allergic to cats?”

Deadpan, he replied, “That was never proven.”

Well, shit. Now Steve had a cat _and_ a ghost. 

At first he thought it was just shitty drains and the like. He had grown up in old apartments in Brooklyn, the kind of pre-war buildings that fostered a fondness for old architecture in any small, art-obsessed boys and girls who happened to live there. He was used to cold spots from poorly maintained HVAC systems, flickering lights from old electrical patch jobs, cupboards slamming from drafty windows and doors. 

Most of the signs of ghosts that people talked about were easily explained if you knew anything about old houses. So when the kitchen sink drain clogged and spewed up red-tinged liquid, he nodded and thought _rust_ , and added ‘plumber…copper pipes?’ to his growing to-do list. 

When he finished stripping off all the layers of horrendous wallpaper and finally got to painting his bedroom walls (a soft blue with the unfortunate name ‘I Blue You Away’), he was a little disturbed to see what seemed to be phantom paint seeping forward. It bloomed into the likeness of an angry man dressed in rags. 

It was the gradualness of its arrival that was most unsettling—he dismissed the initial dark shapes as his own careless paint job. (He wasn’t a careless man, but it was late, and his eyes hurt, and his shoulders were sore.) 

But then, the next morning, the shadow shape of a portrait was undeniably present. 

He’d never seen its like—as if someone on the inside of the wall had dropped india ink and it, like water, had spread naturally into these striking features. The tense jawline, the piercing eyes, the strong line of elbow to clenched fists, the gentle curve of a bottom lip and evidence of tiredness in the gauzy suggestion of his clothes. 

Steve sat on the floor and stared up at it for a while, creeped out and puzzled. 

He went and got his sketchbook and a pillow to sit on. That night his back was killing him for it, but he felt full and satisfied from capturing the weird ethereality of it with just charcoals.

In the morning, the cat woke him up two hours early to hiss in his face before darting off. It was freezing, and it made his joints ache to think of grouting the upstairs bathroom. And it looked like he needed to check the HVAC too. 

Ugh. First breakfast, then meds, _then_ coherent thought.

He was working his way doggedly through a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios at the card table he’d set up in the kitchen, staring into nothing as he mentally went through his task list, when he saw movement in the corner of his eye. He looked behind him, but nothing. Probably a bug. God, he hoped this house didn’t have an infestation the inspector had failed to find.

When he turned back to his cereal with a sigh, there was something inches from his face—he shouted and fell out of his folding chair. It was a butter knife. Hanging still in mid-air. Steve squinted at it, breathless. 

“What—the fuck,” he said, and dug into his pants pocket for his inhaler. He took a puff, unable to look away from it, for fear it might move or disappear. It did neither, but there was a kind of quivering energy in the room that Steve did not think came from his own internal panic. 

He got up and waved his hand above the knife. “No strings,” he muttered. He looked at the underside of the card table, feeling foolish when he found no reasonable explanation there either. He climbed up on the table and looked at it from every angle, but it remained, stubbornly and inexplicably real. 

He poked it. It was solid, but did not move. He grabbed it by the handle and tugged. 

“Hey, asshole,” he grunted, then pulled with all his might. “Gimme my fuckin’ butter knife back.”

The quivering tension snapped, and Steve fell ass over heels from the table, knife in hand. 

“Wow, thanks,” he groaned. 

The next day it happened again, the prickling feeling of someone nearby, the butter knife stopping inches away and sticking in its improbable place—but this time Steve simply moved his cereal and chair over and continued eating. He couldn’t stop himself from flinching at it, but he would not let whatever this is get the better of him again. 

The kitchen fan slowed in its turning and the air turned thick and hot as bread pudding. Steve chewed his cereal to paste, tried not to dart looks at the knife, tried to swallow through the air, the growing feeling that he needed to _leave, run outside, get away, get out—_

He took a deliberate sip from his red Solo cup of orange juice (more like pink juice, since he had tritanopia, but whatever. He liked oranges). “I ain’t running,” he announced. 

He wasn’t. But he did need intel, and there’s nothing shameful in a tactical retreat. 

Steve stuffed the manila folder of legal documents in his bag with one hand while he locked the door. It was time to give the old homeowners a call.

“Hey, Wanda,” he said into the phone he held to his ear with a shrugged shoulder, since he was using both hands to google ‘scientific reasons for floating objects’. 

“Listen, this is gonna sound—I better just show you. I need some help with the house. Might be up your alley. Text me when you’ve got a free hour, okay? Thanks.”

A barista brought over his coffee and ham and cheese croissant. “Thanks,” he muttered, and continued trying to weed through the surprising number of magician-centric results for anything useful. 

“You’re super welcome, tiny hunk,” the barista said, and Steve’s head snapped up. 

“Darcy?” he asked, because there she was, in a red beanie with purple, glittery nails this time. “Your name tag is upside down again.”

She patted it. “Yep, yep, that’s, you know, my _thing_. My shtick. I like to make ‘em work for it, you know?” 

Steve did not know, and made a face to display this. 

“Whatever, it totally works, but what I really wanna know is, how is your kitty cat? I demanded weekly photo updates and you did _not_ provide.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said, and took a long sip. Darcy set her hip against the table, getting comfortable, and made grabby hands at his phone. 

“I don’t have any photos. He’s very quick. Sticks to the shadows and pops outta nowhere—can’t tell ya how many times he’s tripped me. Refuses every kinda cat food I’ve tried and I don’t know where the hell he’s shitting, but it ain’t in the litter box.”

“Your cat would totally be a rogue in D&D. Idk about the litter, though. Kitties love burying their shit, it’s an instinct thing. That’s super weird.”

She actually spelled out the acronym, eye-dee-kay, instead of just…saying the words. He was kind of done with his whole generation at that moment. 

“Understatement,” he muttered, and bought an exorcism kit on Etsy. 

_What the hell_ , he figured. _When it doesn’t work, I can put the herbs in a soup._

Steve meant to keep out of the house all day, but now that plan seemed a little extreme. Darcy kept stopping by his table to ‘drop off napkins’ or ‘refill his latte’, and from the way her coworker was reacting, this was the most attention she’d paid to her job ever. Also, he was pretty sure this cafe didn’t normally do table service. 

When he stepped back in the front door, he paused to see if the house still held that air of menace, but there was nothing. Just the usual smell of must and old wood varnish. Steve dug through the slightly squashed manila folder, found the homeowners’ contact page, and dialed. 

“…Hello?” a young woman’s voice sounded through the line.

 _Hey, is the house you sold me haunted?_ Steve thought hysterically. _How the hell am I supposed to ask this?_

“Uh, hey! How are you?”

“…?”

“It’s uh, I bought your house. This is Naomi Barnes, right?” he asked, suddenly sure this was the wrong number.

“Oh. No, yeah, that’s me. I just didn’t expect…is something the matter?” 

He laughed, and winced at how strained it sounded. “No! It’s a great house. Good bones. Gonna look great when it’s done. I grew up flipping houses like this with my parents, fixing ‘em and moving to the next project, ya know. So I can tell it’s gonna look great,” Steve said, slapped his forehead and rubbed down over his mouth.

_Shut up, oh my god, you idiot._

“Okay?” said Naomi. “Sorry, it’s just, if nothing’s wrong, I’m not sure why you’re calling.”

“Right. I had a few questions I wanted to run by you. Did you leave a cat here? Big fella, I think it’s called a tabby.”

“Oh,” Naomi said, for the first time sounding engaged. “You’ve seen Princess Peach? Is he okay?”

Steve felt like he was dissociating. _That nightmare cat cannot be named Princess Peach._

“That can’t be his name,” he said. _Oops, I said that out loud._

“We were kids. I thought he was a girl and I liked Mario games. So you’ve seen him?” Naomi repeated.

“Yeah, here and there. I thought he was a stray who snuck in since he was acting real feral. But the cat shelter said he was a Maine Coon,” he said, and headed up to his room. If he was going to ask a near stranger about ghosts, he might as well be comfortable.

“You gave him to a cat shelter? How did you even get him in a carrier?” she asked.

“I didn’t. Thought he was yours, wasn’t gonna give someone else’s cat away. So…d’ya want him back?” 

“No, no,” Naomi said hastily. “I can’t. My apartment doesn’t allow pets. And anyway, Princess Peach has been in that house since forever. He probably wouldn’t do well leaving it. I actually have no idea how old he is, ‘cause he wasn’t a kitten when we were kids.”

He squinted. “But…that would make him, what. Eighteen, twenty? He looks barely four.”

She laughed. “Yeah, me and Aaron had all these conspiracy theories about how he was an escaped government experiment. But really, you oughtta keep him. If he lets you see him at all, he probably likes you.”

Steve thought about the number of times he woke up with the cat hissing in his face and hummed dubiously, “Maybe. If it’s alright, I had a few other questions about the house.”

“Sure.”

He took a deep breath and got out his sketchbook to keep his hands busy. He’d have to go about this…delicately. _God_. Steve had never once been accused of being delicate. Where was Natasha when he needed her? 

“I’m not sure how much the realtor told you about my plans for the house—”

“Nothing. You were one of the first bids. To be honest, our Mimi kept this place way longer than was good for her. Sentimental, probably, since it’s been in our family forever. She was in a nursing home and we’re in college, so no one really lived here the past few years anyway. We were just happy we got as much as we did for it, since it’s like, basically falling apart.”

“Right. Like I said, I grew up flipping houses, so the condition’s not a problem. But this house was built in 1907 and it’s still got most of the original moldings and doors. It’s history. I’m restoring it, not renovatin’ it. I dunno if it’ll qualify to be a historical landmark when I’m done. I’m no professional. But I would like to know more about uh, the family history, since that’s a big part of the house’s history too, ya know,” Steve finished. 

He wasn’t a good liar and he didn’t like to do it, besides, but he was a little proud of how plausible this excuse was. He almost believed it. Natasha always did say the best lie was a secret from yourself.

“The family history,” Naomi said, flatly. All the friendliness he had earned asking after the cat disappeared.

 _Oh boy,_ he thought. 

“Right. Uh, I really think it would help.”

She sighed heavily. “I don’t know much. Mimi was your best bet for this stuff and she’s dead now, so. What kind of stuff d’you wanna know?”

Steve glanced down at his sketchbook and realized he’d been drawing a caricature of himself, looking at a cartoon ghost with comically overwhelmed eyes. _Me too, buddy. Me too._

“Uh,” he cleared his throat. “How about, where your family’s from, mysterious deaths, any big family achievements, people or…events history should remember, things like that.”

There was a long silence down the phone line. Steve added little feet to the ghost, like it was a person under bedsheets. He gave them wingtips.

“Weird, but whatever. We’re Jewish and we moved here from Russia before World War I, I’m pretty sure. I don’t remember anyone mentioning like, Olympic athletes or musicians. Always been teachers or mechanics or mailmen, you know, regular jobs. Although,” Naomi said, and paused.

“Yeah?”

“I mean, pretty much every generation of Barnes’ has at least one soldier, I think. My uncle, my Baba—uh, that’s what we called my grandpa—and he was always proud about his uncle serving in World War II even though he died just before Baba was born.”

“Oh?” Steve asked, hopeful. “How’d he die?”

“Did something heroic and didn’t make it back. They gave the family his medal and the flag; I’m sure it’s in storage somewhere.”

“Do you remember his name?” 

“No. I dunno. James, I think.”

Naomi sounded pretty done, and he felt suddenly guilty for making this poor girl dig through her family tree right after her grandma died. Ma would kill him when she found out. Why didn’t he just fucking google it?

“Thank you, Naomi. Really. I’m sorry to ask all this,” he said.

“It’s whatever. Is that everything?” 

“Yeah. Thanks again.”

“Okay,” she said, and hung up.

Steve couldn’t blame her. 

He labelled his cartoon ghost ‘James Barnes?’. Then he grabbed his dust mask and kneepads, loaded up an audiobook, and headed to the bathroom for more grouting.

Wanda texted him back that night and told him to bring the butter knife and any other weird stuff over to her place. He put it in a ziplock bag, feeling like he was bagging evidence at a crime scene. 

She drew it out with a carefulness that made him feel a lot less foolish about that, and inspected it for several long minutes. Steve’s seen her do this before—brows heavy over a dark sloe-eyed stare, her ordinarily light sweetness dipped into a well of solemnity—so he knew to keep the silence till she broke it. 

Her eyes flashed to his and he straightened. “No one else has touched this?” she asked in her musical, accented English. He nodded. 

She hummed, “It is—what is the word—” she made a buzzing noise and waved her hands “—but in a lonely way. Angry. But not empty.”

“You’re saying it’s definitely supernatural.” 

Wanda laughed, “Oh yes. Definitely ‘my cup of tea’. But I have not, ah, tasted this flavor before. It may take a while for me to have a better idea of what it is. All I can tell you is that it is not an empty echo of a life. Not a ghost, I do not think. It is, it has a, present mind. Living emotions.”

Steve rubbed his face. “Damn. None of this was on the deed,” he said wryly, and her kind eyes crinkled in amusement. “Thank you, Wanda. I appreciate you going through the trouble.”

“No trouble,” she waved. “It is a fun puzzle. I will tell you if I solve more of it. Until then, it is best you avoid interacting with it as much as you can. And tell me if something new happens.” 

He nodded and made to leave. “Steve,” Wanda called. She had her serious eyes on. “If it hurts you, or you feel threatened, my couch is free.”

“That’s real kind,” he smiled. “But my Ma has a pull out couch if it comes to that.”

 _If it hurts me_ , he thought on the drive home, _I’ll kick its ass to Queens._

———————————————————————————————

_This motherfucker_ , Bucky thought, with a grudging respect, _does not scare easy._

He didn’t look like much, this motherfucker—thin and slumped, pale and huffing, with joints jutting like protractor angles and a full, delicate mouth. His nose took up most of his face. Bucky thought uncharitably that you would think nostrils that size would keep the huffing and puffing to a minimum, but you would be wrong. 

Every morning he took as many little pills as the elderly members of Bucky’s family used to, pricked himself with a palm-sized device, injected his side with some liquid from the mini fridge, and often drank orange juice straight from the carton. (This last thing was not a weakness as much as it was abominably rude.) 

But. He had to admit that motherfucker seemed to have endless endurance, like he possessed a source of energy totally separate from his body. A spring, somewhere. A deep swelling river spirit. 

Whatever it was, it stalled Bucky’s angry moods to watch him struggle through a breathing attack, pull himself slowly and grimly back up, and continue working like nothing at all had occurred. It might be why none of Bucky’s warnings were working—who feared a knife who walked with death in their lungs? 

Still, it couldn’t hurt to try, and he was still steaming from yet another orange juice infraction. That night he threw all the spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck—if by ‘spaghetti’ you meant ‘the entire silverware drawer’. 

The messy motherfucker yelled and ducked to the ground in an extremely gratifying display of self-preservation, and shielded his head from the hailstorm of spoons. 

He looked up at the sight of all his butter knives and forks embedded, vibrating, two inches deep in the fresh drywall. He just got it installed after a huge troupe of men in masks had torn out and replaced the stuffing behind all the old walls, for some inexplicable human reason. “God _damm_ it!” he growled. “That is _it_!”

He stomped into the living room and rummaged in a delivery box. He came back up with two black candles, a white bundle of dried leaves, five small colorful stones, a piece of chalk, and a piece of overly decorated printer paper labeled ‘Simple Exorcism Kit Instructions’.

_Are you…actually that dumb?_

Once Bucky got over his initial shock, he found the whole thing hilarious. Here he was, dealing with an interloper in his family’s home, and the interloper was trying to kick _him_ out. Motherfucker thought he was a ghost. 

Bucky watched, unable to stop smiling, as Motherfucker drew circles and symbols on the wood floor with the chalk, eyebrows pinched and muttering about varnish. He didn’t think this guy expected it to work at all. It looked like he was too angry to care. It was…charming.

He brushed his hair out of his eyes, lit the candles with sarcastic melodrama, and read from the paper, “Begone, bad spirit. I cast you and your negative energies out of this house. You are not welcome here. Begone, begone, uh, begone.”

He referred to the paper again, and then set the herb bundle on fire. No doubt it was a smoking herb, the kind that swallowed fire into red coals. It was probably the end of the whole production.

But Bucky was having so much fun watching this; he couldn’t help wanting to tease back. He flexed his fingers and the little dying flame flared up into a bright four inch column.

Motherfucker, eyes huge, let out a frog’s croak of an alarm. He blew at it. Bucky cackled and sent it another inch higher. He felt himself start to sweat and his hands shook with the effort—more fallout of an empty hearth—but gods, was it worth it. 

Motherfucker threw the flaming herbs like a baseball from a pitcher’s mound at the floor and stomped on it with his big brown worker’s boots. He kept stomping long after Bucky let the flame die.

Bucky almost wished that he was allowed to let people hear him, because he hadn’t laughed this hard in decades. As much as his family’s absence was a throbbing hole in his chest, if his house had to be invaded by anyone—well. 

Motherfucker wasn’t all bad.

Bucky had figured out the trick of training Motherfucker—or, well, no he hadn’t. He _had_ figured out that classical conditioning was not the way to go. 

Most of the Barnes’ were straight-forward, hard-working folk. Immediate negative reinforcement when they were messy or lazy hadn’t been necessary until the last thirty years or so. Before that, they were finely attuned to their household and their domovoi’s needs and moods, so that refusing an offering or pointedly leaving soot around the hearth was enough to get them to sit up and take notice. Even when one or two of the family felt that belief in a supernatural creature was childish and backwards or even heretical, there was always a grandmother to keep the whole flock in line.

When little Dicky Barnes came back from the Persian Gulf War, short a brother and half his right leg, insisting on being called Richard and hiding darkness in a smile, things changed. 

Richard woke everyone with his night terrors and took to limp-stomping around the house on his prosthetic when he couldn’t sleep. During the day he drank to keep his phantom pain at arm’s length and smoked to keep his hands from shaking. The drink worsened his mood swings—equal probability that he slapped at his wife or reeled her in for a kiss. Bucky had to work harder to make the house feel comforting and safe. The family began to focus outwards, and needed more obvious nudges to take care of themselves and the house.

The problem was not that Richard Barnes had brought the war home with him—Bucky had seen it before, and it took a while for everyone to heal from it, even with his help. The problem was something he didn’t expect: the war had warped Richard like metal around a tree, glass in a kiln. His spirit was altered on some atomic level Bucky couldn’t reach. 

For the next twenty years, Bucky turned every effort, formerly aimed at keeping the pipes from rust and the wood whole and supple, towards keeping the family safe from Richard. Even as they offered Bucky less and less, forgot him more and more, and let the house bald with age, he kept the house supernaturally comforting on bad nights and turned as many blows away as he could. On nights when no comfort could keep Richard’s demons dormant or the others from their terror, he opened the windows so the neighbors could intervene for him. 

His binding not to harm Richard complicated matters. He longed to eject him permanently from the household, but only they could do that, and they were too terrified to try. It showed a profound lack of belief and trust in their domovoi protector. Bucky tried not to take it _too_ personally. 

They never did kick him out. Richard died in a drunk driving accident when the children were still school-aged, and their mother left them with their grandparents to start fresh with a new husband. He did his best to retrain them to keep the house properly, but found he had to resort to a blunt hammer method—and none of it, it seemed, had worked. The house looked like an old man. The kids had gotten rid of him and their childhood home as soon as they were legally capable.

Bucky almost didn’t even blame them.

Motherfucker wasn’t his family, but he did live in his house, so he would abide by Bucky’s rules. Now he had to figure out how to make Motherfucker do literally anything he didn’t want to, which so far had been impossible. 

Negative reinforcement just made Motherfucker more defiant and stubborn. Bucky supposed he had started out rougher than necessary—throwing silverware was pretty dangerous—except he’d been furious at being abandoned, and hearing Motherfucker’s shocked yell was cathartic. That he had then gotten so mad that he tried to _exorcise_ Bucky, like _he_ was the invasive presence in the scenario—well. 

He still found it hilarious. But it did make him reevaluate his methods.

Positive reinforcement for good things—putting his dishes away, sweeping drywall dust, making up the sheets on his cot, which he was very neat about—was, so far, a hit or miss. Mostly it seemed to confuse Motherfucker, two lines appearing between his eyebrows as he examined the carefully arranged gift of charcoal sticks before carefully packing it into a ziplock bag and never fucking _using_ them. 

The problem, Bucky decided, was that he didn’t know much about Motherfucker at all. 

These were the facts he knew about Motherfucker: He drew, he was brave, he was sickly, he went about alternately destroying and fixing the house wearing a bulky face mask, and he liked making lists. But Bucky hadn’t watched Motherfucker grow up like all the Barnes. He couldn’t reward him with a favorite childhood candy or a new ball of expensive yarn. 

Bucky didn’t even know his name. No one who’d come into the house had really addressed him, either, so he had no way of learning it. 

Although…maybe. There was something—in his animal form, he could directly interact with Motherfucker. It wouldn’t be the same as a conversation, but obviously domovye weren’t meant to do much of that. 

He tested this new avenue that weekend, when Motherfucker’s plan for the day appeared to be: sit on his cot and watch cartoons while drawing. 

Bucky, in his cat form, pawed open the door and walked in front of the bed, tail waving high like a white flag (but only metaphorically. Bucky preferred being tabby). He did this a few times. There was no response from the cot, only the ceaseless scritch-scratch of graphite on recycled paper. The laptop playing the cartoon shrieked, “Everyone! She-Ra has come to save us all!”

_Come on. Look up, Motherfucker._

He did not. Bucky peeked over the end of the cot, ears twitching. He was trying not to be frightening this time, but it didn’t seem Motherfucker responded to subtlety. More direct intervention was required. 

He leapt up. Still nothing. Just more drawing in a weirdly large sketchbook, and occasional breaks to watch this She-Ra character save everyone.

Bucky had never liked being ignored, but he liked it even less from Motherfucker. He hooked a paw around the top of the laptop screen and peeked over it into his boarder’s startled face. 

“Cat!” he said, and dropped his pencil. 

Bucky resisted the un-catlike urge to roll his eyes. 

Motherfucker was giving him a wide stare and holding his hands still in the air, probably afraid he would strike at sudden movements. He wouldn’t, this time. Probably. 

Now that he had the man’s attention, Bucky padded around the laptop and sat just within arm’s reach. He glanced at the sketchbook, but even upside down he could tell there was nothing so convenient as a legible signature. A large part of the page was taken up by sharply defined designs of a madman’s definition of an armchair deconstructed, notated with numbers and small handwriting in all capital letters. 

More interesting were the margins, where Motherfucker had grown bored of angles and drawn a variety of round cartoonish figures. Bucky tilted his head a little closer…they looked like costumed baby dolls? Weird, but admittedly much more pleasing to look at than the chair parts. 

“Hey, there. You’re being real friendly today. Did you finally decide to be friends, huh? D’you want some food?” he asked, but made no move to stand. 

_No one wants your wet fish mush, Motherfucker_ , Bucky thought, tail ticking against the quilted bedspread.

“Well, let’s see how long I can get you to hang out. Gonna let me pet ya?” he asked, and reached a testing hand forwards.

Bucky hopped off the cot, letting his tail bat the hand playfully as he went. No luck today, then. He’d check again when he saw more papers. 

This’d be a lot easier if Motherfucker ever brought any friends over. Or told people his name when he called them or invited them in, like a normal human. 

When he’d heard him say Naomi’s name, it was like a punch to the gut. But at least now he knew that Motherfucker had grown up abandoning places like this—despicable behavior, though in this case it worked in Bucky’s favor. Once he was done ruining the house, he’d leave. There was an end to all this. Bucky was determined to see that as a good thing, no matter how his gut twisted at the thought of being left again.

Over the next week, Bucky used his cat form to snoop every time he saw Motherfucker handling papers, including:

  * Eight times he was drawing—mostly more of those deconstructed furniture monstrosities, though once a pair of white lilies held in calloused hands, and none of which he signed. Humble asshole.
  * Once he was making a grocery list. Boring. Too many tomatoes and no pudding at all. 
  * Eleven times, usually in the morning and night, he wrote in a leather-bound journal. The pages had some kind of grid he filled with organized lists. Lots of dates but no name, unsurprisingly.
  * Twice towards the end of the week, Bucky sat on the newspaper and refused to move while Motherfucker was trying to read it, but that was just for fun.



He didn’t bring in any mail. Bucky was beginning to wonder if he would have to wait till tax season rolled around. For some reason, this small curiosity had, with every day that passed without learning his erstwhile boarder’s name, become an intolerable grievance. 

But more than that, there was something about him. He was such an unknown, but so clearly full of _somethings_. There was an extra feeling about his presence in a room, a buzzing bigness, that Bucky had never seen before. It made him feel itchy.

Finally, nine days into this, Motherfucker had someone over who had some sense of how introductions were supposed to work. He felt them cross onto the property—large, Nordic heritage, meant no ill will, carrying a toolbox. He ran in cat form to the door, too impatient to wait for the knock that came a minute later. Motherfucker gave him a curious look as he opened it to greet the man. 

“Hi. You Thor? A&E Systems said you wouldn’t get here for another hour,” he said, and held out a hand.

The man grinned and shook the offered hand with the kind of firm hold and hearty backslaps that only the truly friendly could pull off. Bucky barely held back a laugh at Motherfucker’s expression. 

“It is good I am early! And you must be Mr. Rogers,” Thor boomed. 

“Steve, please. Mr. Rogers is on PBS. Come in. Do you want something to drink? I have water and…water,” he finished, mouth twisting wryly. 

“A difficult choice, but water would be fine,” Thor smiled, and carefully stepped around Bucky to set his tools in the living room. 

So Motherfucker’s name was Steve Rogers. Steve. Such a…normal, solid name. 

Somehow it was not what he’d been expecting. 

Somehow he was so focused on finding out Steve’s name that he’d forgotten why he wanted to know it, to know everything he could about his new boarder. It was all supposed to be about training him to be a good member of the household, a good reflection of a good domovoi’s family.

But there was no household to make proud. Bucky didn’t have a family to be good _for_. All he had was the husk they’d left him in, the house that was as much a part of his body as his tail or his fingers. A shell of a thing with no purpose. 

Just something to be sold and torn apart by the new inhabitant. 

Why was he doing any of this? Training Steve, hiding from sight, protecting the boundaries—what was the point of being what he was, doing what he always did, following the instinctual rules that kept him bound together? He was what he did and he did it because it was what he was. But now—there was no hearth, no center. 

When Naomi Barnes was growing up, she was always chattering about outer space. Often, he was the only one listening, and he remembered how she would read aloud from her books about the gravity of large bodies, small finger carefully tracing below polysyllabic words. 

That’s how it was with him—a moon treading its orbit around its planet, revolution after revolution, turning in on itself. Always keeping its face to the planet and its dark side to the cold hostility of space.

What happened when the planet’s gravity disappeared and there was nothing holding the moon to its path? Was a moon still a moon without a planet? 

_Is there anything more pathetic_ , Bucky thought, _than a moon circling the same empty point in space when nothing remains to hold it?_

———————————————————————————————

Steve took his own advice and fucking googled it. 

He found record of a Sgt. James Barnes of Brooklyn, NY, dying on August 8, 1944. Because libraries are awesome, the Brooklyn Public Library website had years and years of _Brooklyn Daily Eagle_ issues digitized and organized by date. He started with August 1 and went forward from there. He couldn’t exactly ‘Ctrl + F’ the paper, but at least now he wouldn’t have to spend hours crouched over one of those awful microfiche machines straining his eyes in a dark back room. He was on page 14 of August 5, 1944 when he found it, on a page headlined ‘Stories of Brooklyn Men and Women in U.S. War Service’. 

Steve noticed his picture first. 

He was handsome—and not just in that classic way soldiers always looked handsome in their military dress, further exaggerated by the black and white contrast of newspaper ink. James Barnes was handsome in a way that took your heart for a spin and dipped you low with a wink. His hat surely wasn’t meant to be placed so, crooked and tilted back so he could grin at the camera through slanted eyes, but he seemed exactly the kind of man that would get away with it. Cocksure and jovial and so, so young. 

The second thing he noticed was that it was also, without a doubt, the same man as the one that’d shown up painted on his bedroom wall for a brief two days before fading away sulkily, a photograph sinking to the bottom of a pond. 

Beneath the caption, the subhead read “Mother Learns of Barnes’ Capture”, with the brief story as follows:

“A letter that Mrs. Barnes of 4520 12th Ave. received from her son, Sgt. James Barnes in Africa this February, showed that he was determined, though not as cheerful as usual. That aroused her suspicions that all was not well. In March she received a telegram from the War Department reporting him missing in action. A second Government notification informed her that James had been taken prisoner by the Germans Feb 25.

Sgt. James Barnes entered the army July 16, 1941, and spent two months at Camp Wheeler, Ga., and four months advanced training in Madison, Wisc., before being sent overseas. Because he was missing on Feb 25, his mother thinks he was taken in Tunisia. In his last letter to her, he said he was “not kicking off yet” and that he was thinking of home and his sisters and asked her to send “all the socks you got and even more cigarettes than that.”

Mr. Barnes fears the worst as Sgt. Barnes was not among the names very recently reported to be confirmed living in German prison camps. But Mrs. Barnes has faith. “He graduated high school with honors. At 20, he was a manager of a grocery store. He’s smart and strong and he told us not to worry a whit.”

There was no obituary published later in August that Steve could find—the government must have switched his ‘missing in action’ status to ‘killed in action’ months later, when the bureaucratic dust of war had settled.

“Shit,” he said aloud to the young dead man on his screen. “You poor bastard.”

Now that he had a working electrical system—one that he didn’t have to worry would burn his house down or short out suddenly—he could start getting it up to fire code. Thor had installed the smoke alarms already, so they just wanted some batteries and a test run. 

His ma was over to help, since it was Sunday, and even though he pretty much only went to mass for Christmas Eve once a year, he and his Ma still kept the Sunday dinner tradition. Said tradition being, ordering as much Chinese food as they could handle and watching whatever they wanted. Ma always referred to it jokingly as ‘guilt therapy’. “We got our weekly dose of guilt this morning,” she would explain cheerfully, “so now we’ll have some guilt-free guilty pleasures to balance it out. Moderation, Stevie. That’s the key.”

He set up a ladder underneath the kitchen’s smoke alarm first, and Ma passed him a 9V battery. One by one they put them all in, chatting about what show they would normally feel the most guilty watching and arguing the relative flaws of each. They figured he could test them tomorrow. What Steve had forgotten in his many years of living in dorms and apartments was that smoke alarms, once activated, have absolutely no fucking chill at all. 

He was just twisting the last smoke alarm into its casing, shoulders burning and neck killing him, his Ma giving him a concerned look at the way he winced with the movement, when a piercing chirp rang from the kitchen. 

It went off in the hallway and seconds later in the living room, starting a chain reaction that led all the way through the house to the attic above him. 

_**BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.** _

“Ugh,” he sighed.

His Ma laughed incredulously. “What on earth?”

He turned off his hearing aid and moved to climb down, only to see the cat—to see Princess Peach—staring up at the smoke alarm with extreme suspicion. The hallway alarm sounded off, and he darted out with his tail fluffed aggressively to glare at it. Steve smiled despite himself, meeting his ma’s sparkling eyes, and they followed after him. He folded the step ladder, intending to carry it under his arm, but Ma grabbed it, pointing at him sternly till he gave in. 

And then something truly horrible happened. The beeps began to overlap, like some hellish and inharmonious choir. His ma was reacting like they were drilling straight into her forehead. Steve was, for once, glad to be half deaf. 

Princess Peach ran to stare daggers at each alarm as it shrieked—very much like a guard dog who hears someone at the door. It would have been sweet if the overlapping noises didn’t result in a relay race of scrambling from room to room, with barely a pause granted for Princess Peach to glare. It was instead YouTube comedy gold, and Steve tried to keep his phone steady to keep the cat in frame as he recorded. Currently, his ma was calmly walking down the stairs with the ladder, shaking her head fondly at him as she passed. At the very least, Natasha would enjoy it. 

Eventually, though, even with his hearing aid off the noise was too much for him to handle, and besides, his poor ma had to work tomorrow and he’d hate to give her a headache. She went back around with the step ladder to help him reset them all. By the time he finished and Ma went to coo at the new bathtub he’d had installed in his master bathroom, Princess Peach had clearly decided this was all his fault. Steve re-entered his bedroom to find the cat sitting on his cot, eyes narrowed to slits.

“Hey, pal. Rough day, huh?” Steve smirked.

Princess Peach stared pointedly at him and began slashing his pillowcase to ribbons.

“Whoa, hey! No!” he yelled, and lunged for the creature. 

Despite the speed at which he darted out of the room, Steve thought he saw a distinctly triumphant sparkle in Princess Peach’s eye before he vanished around the corner.

From the bathroom, his ma called, “Steven Grant, are you okay?”

He sighed. “Yes, Ma. Just the fuckin’ cat.”

“Oh,” she replied, amused, “well, if it’s just the fuckin’ cat.”


	2. Cat's Outta the Bag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Sam, and Natasha meet Steve's new """ghost""". Steve should listen to Wanda more. Angie has a crisis. Sarah Rogers is the best Ma.  
> ~  
> “Steven Grant, if you don’t tie that boy down soon, someone else very lucky will, and I will have to hear you refuse to talk about it for the rest of your life,” Ma said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is what sparked my idea for this fic! 
> 
> Today, in honor of our 'feral' cat, I give you a Russian children's song "Hush, You Mice":  
> "Mice are dancing in a round,  
> On a bench a cat is sleeping.  
> 'Hush, you mice, don't make such noise  
> Or you'll wake up Vaska Cat  
> Vaska Cat will jump and leap  
> And will spoil and break your round.'"
> 
> Thank you to my artist, [Mai](https://maichan808.tumblr.com) and my beta, [Teej](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_or_something/)!
> 
> I'm posting daily at around 6-8PM EST till Friday.

Maybe it was the combination of the cat’s antics and the ghost clearly laughing at his exorcism attempt—or maybe he was just feeling spiteful—but the next Friday, Steve invited Natasha and Sam over for a ghost movie marathon. Sure, had Wanda specifically warned him not to engage or aggravate his invisible house pest? Yes. Was this specifically aimed to aggravate, and was it kind of shitty to involve his friends in a fuck-you to a hostile spirit without their knowledge? Yes, and yes. Was Steve enough of a shit-stirrer to do it anyway?

Abso-fuckin’-lutely.

“Alright! I haven’t done a movie marathon since college. I am ready for some campy-ass shit. I brought _Ghost_ and you both will love it. Nat, whatchu got?” asked Sam.

They were sitting on Steve’s quilt on the floor of his bedroom and leaning against the wall, his extra bed pillows forming a makeshift couch. Natasha had brought her laptop to play the movies on, because it had the best speakers, and Sam even bought a portable projector for the occasion. Natasha lifted up a DVD case wordlessly. 

“Is that in Korean?” Steve asked.

Sam grabbed it. “Oh hell no. This looks like some real actual horror.”

Natasha smiled. “We each bring a movie, that was the deal. No take backs. Steve, what’s yours? Another Hitchcock?”

He chuckled. “Nah, Ma would kill me if I watched one without her. _Poltergeist_.”

They started with Natasha’s pick, because both Steve and Sam refused to watch it after nightfall. God, were they ever right about that. 

“Wow,” Steve said, while the end credits rolled slowly up to disappear into his ceiling. “Um.”

Natasha dimpled. “I know. Koreans are so much better at horror. They really _go_ for it.”

“I don’t understand how you can have positive emotions right now,” Sam rasped. “I need so much cheesy Swayze magic after that. Jesus, woman.”

She patted him on the shoulder as she got up, “I’ll make some popcorn. Feel free to start without me.”

Having known Sam since freshman year of high school, Steve was pretty familiar with the movie, but he’d forgotten how… _80s_ it was. “Can I say, as an artist, that I’d hate to have to do art with my boyfriend literally ruining it as I went, in some nonsense version of foreplay? That’s not sexy. That’s just plain rude.”

Sam snorted. “Can I say, as _un_ _artiste_ , shut the hell up, Rogers. Whoopi Goldberg’s about to show up.”

During the ghost sex scene, Natasha said around a mouth full of popcorn, “You know. This is technically the first interracial lesbian sex scene in a mainstream movie. Or it could have been, if they weren’t _cowards_.”

“Fair. But wouldn’t it be the first interracial bisexual threesome? Bi erasure is real, Nat. Don’t be a part of the problem,” Steve deadpanned. 

Sam threw popcorn at them both. Steve dodged. Natasha caught it in her mouth.

Compared to that, _Poltergeist_ was genuinely scary. It was exactly what he’d hoped for, though. Chock full of horror movie tropes about ghosts, all of them probably inaccurate. He wasn’t sure how constant the creature’s attention was, but from Wanda’s description, it was sentient and aware. And if it was sentient and aware, Steve could fuck with it.

He didn’t expect it to fuck with him right back. But the next morning after one of his first showers in the newly finished upstairs bathroom, he stepped out to find a message written backwards in the fogged over mirror. As if the mirror itself had written it.

 **LEAVE** , it said.

“What the fuck,” Steve whispered. He hitched his towel tighter.

“ _Me_ the fuck,” said a voice from directly behind him.

“Shitting god!” he shrieked, and spun around. 

There was nothing there. Well. Nothing visible. The air had that soupy tension to it, just like it did some mornings in the kitchen. Steve tried to make out some kind of shape or mirage-like blurriness in front of him, but no. He waved his hand around to see if the creature was physically there and felt nothing but embarrassment. 

“Okay, asshole, if that’s how you wanna play it. I’m going to my room and you are going to respect my privacy while I change, or I will get my witch friend to do some nasty shit to you.”

It took some patented Rogers courage to turn his back on the bathroom and march into his room. He closed the door firmly and locked it. He paused after he grabbed an outfit from his suitcase, but he couldn’t let himself freak out yet. _First, clothes. Then, Wanda’s place._ _And maybe a boatload of ice cream._

He dressed under his covers, because why the hell would he trust that spirit to do what he asked? Steve deliberately did not allow himself to make a list of all the times in this house he’d been naked, or those few times he’d had enough energy left at the end of the day to jerk off. That way madness laid. 

When Wanda opened the door, she took him by the elbow and sat him at her kitchen table. “Do not move. I have tea steeping.”

Steve let out a long breath, feeling his shoulders and jaw unclench at the comfort of his friend’s home. It was a bit like entering a warm cave of textiles and odd-looking house plants. The floors and walls were layered with complexly-patterned carpets, tapestries, and blankets, all some flavor of primary color. 

Wanda swept back in with the scent of patchouli and jasmine clinging to her skirts like little cats. He accepted the clay mug of tea she pressed into his hand—it tasted like warm dirt and cloves. She sat in the chair next to him and said nothing, drinking from her own mug. 

“Feels dumb now. Nothing happened, really. Just wrote in the mirror, said stuff out loud. I dunno why I let it affect me. I knew it was there the whole time. Nothing’s changed. But I…” he swallowed. 

Wanda put her hand over his. “I know. It was not real before and now it is. Steve,” she said, and he met her eyes, “this is the first creature you have met. You have never even seen me do my work. It is, ah, regular. Normal, to feel drowned by it, by the change it means.”

“I guess,” he shrugged.

“I do not guess. I know,” Wanda smiled, patted his hand and took a deep draught of her tea. He barked a surprise laugh at her wink. “You are a remarkable man, Steve. You have never needed proof to believe I am not a crazy woman with illusions, is it? Illusions of grandeur?”

“Delusions,” he offered, to her grateful nod.

“But you never had to look my world in the eye. Now you do. …I am curious. You say they wrote and spoke to you. What did they say?”

He smiled wryly and told her. 

Wanda let out a high peal of laughter. “They are an asshole! Funny. You match.”

“Hey!” he protested. 

—————————————————————————

Bucky had barely pulled himself out of his useless spiral of dark thoughts when Motherfucker—when Steve paid him back for the pillowcase incident with the movie night. He clearly chose the ghost theme just to poke fun at him. And even though Bucky _wasn’t_ a ghost—he wasn’t sure what he was anymore, but whatever he was, it was not something that took shit lying down. 

Steve Rogers wanted to mock a ghost? Bucky would give him the cheesiest ghost nonsense imaginable, and still scare him with it. He almost wished he could use the laptop to get newer movies to riff off of, but Steve would definitely notice. Bucky’d have to make do with memories from Halloween marathons in the 90s. Plus his own considerable creativity.

Okay, so writing ‘leave’ in the fogged up mirror during Steve’s shower wasn’t exactly creative. But he was going for the classics, right? He, uh, in his excitement, he kind of forgot that being in the bathroom when Steve got out meant Bucky was seeing far more of his pale skin than usual. 

_He must turn the water heat to boiling_ , he thought, because even in the warm air that skin had goosebumps. 

Steve was so shocked by the message that it startled Bucky into speaking aloud. Saying words with his mouth. To a human. For the first time in his existence. The only thing more against his nature would be to let a human see him. Bucky might as well have fucking danced a jig naked in the yard. 

He stood frozen in the damp bathroom as Steve scurried off to his room, horrified, waiting to unravel. Expecting to unspool and any moment drift into un-being.

He waited for hours, watching his feet and his fingers with dread, as if seeing it happen would make it less terrible. He turned his attention to each part of the house, sure his awareness would shrink room by room, and then inward where the cold absence of a hearth would swallow him. By the time Steve had left and come back, slept and woken up—by the time dawn came and swept the house clean and new and golden—

Bucky still existed. And nothing he thought he knew was true.

_Well,_ he thought with a distant sort of amusement, _fuck the rules, then._

It took Steve a day or so to stop jumping at every noise—and in a house as old as this, that amounted to a lot of jumps. Bucky gave him four days to calm down before he messed with him again. He’d seen Steve’s heart medication; he didn’t wanna kill the poor guy. Just get even. Maybe have a little fun while he was at it. 

He started slowly. Steve was drilling holes in the new white walls of the kitchen for some purpose that escaped Bucky, so he sat back and thought about what he couldn’t do as a cat. Steve set the drill down to wipe his flushed face and drink some water. On impulse, Bucky moved the drill quietly two feet to the left. Steve bent to pick it up and stopped, eyebrows furrowed the way they did sometimes when he listened to the news. He looked around and saw it where it laid with the placid innocence only inanimate objects can project. 

“Huh,” Steve said, and turned again to drilling, pulling his filtration mask back on.

Bucky was curious how many more times of this it would take for Steve to break his calm. It turned out the answer was ‘three’. 

“I know it’s you, you asshole!” he hissed, after he turned to find the screws he needed a full four feet away from where he’d put them. Bucky giggled, thrilled to be acknowledged.

“And now you’re laughing at me. Jeez, you’re just like my cat,” Steve huffed. 

Bucky wasn’t aware he’d let Steve hear him and felt a brief stab of panic, before he remembered it didn’t matter anymore. Why couldn’t he talk back, after all? He was barely a domovoi without the Barnes’, and who would know he was breaking the rules? Besides, Steve thought he was a fucking ghost. Ghosts talked all the time in the movies.

More importantly: it was much more fun.

The next day he left Steve’s tools alone, which was almost as good as moving them because of how suspicious it made him. Whenever he turned to grab something and found it where he’d left it, his big blue eyes would narrow and dart around the room, searching for him. (And if Bucky felt a giddiness well up whenever that gaze rested on him by simple chance—if he felt it increasingly difficult not to let Steve find him—well. No one need know about that either.)

Instead, he thumped downstairs in a joyful riot of sound and in the living room, he made some charcoal, thick as sidewalk chalk, black as void. Above the fireplace, which was still dirty and blocked off with boxes and ladders, in big angry letters, Bucky wrote:

_CLEAN YOUR SHIT UP_

He was stepping back to admire it, considering whether it could do with some punctuation, when he felt something under his right heel and heard a pained “Oof.” 

It was Steve, who had apparently followed down after the trail of noise he’d left, and was now staring up at him in plain shock. Not just _at_ him—he was staring straight into Bucky’s eyes. Holy _fuck_ , what a weird and unprecedented feeling. Being seen—being peered into like a glass sculpture of a man with its innards on display, or a house with its front door gaping open. Steve’s eyes were blue as the summer sky of centuries ago, before air pollution took dominion, and they were all he could see. 

“What the hell are you doing in my house?!” Steve yelled, with the suddenness of someone breaking out of a stupor. 

That was more than enough for Bucky to get his head on straight. He sneered down at the man who’d taken over his family’s home. (It was convenient, in this moment, not to remember that his family had given it away. Given him away.) “ _Your_ house? Yeah right, pal. This ain’t no more your house than a rat owns the barn it shits in. This house is _mine_. You’re just a squatter with a vendetta against walls.”

“Hey! I paid good money for this house, and I got the deed to prove it,” bristled Steve. They were still standing toe to toe—Bucky could feel the heat of Steve’s body along his front, as though his anger had physical presence. Was that—did everyone’s body have heat? Did his have it? 

“Oh, yeah?” he smirked. He didn’t even have to try to tower over the man. 

“Yeah,” Steve said, jaw clenched and chin lifted in defiance. Shoulders back like he was squaring up for a brawl. Despite himself, Bucky was reminded vividly of an eight-year-old Naomi, who had stood in front of her father on one of the bad days and squared off in much the same way. 

Damn. What was he doing? If he was anywhere close to acting like Richard Barnes… Bucky backed up three steps to give his boarder space to breathe. Steve furrowed his brow, considering, before untensing cautiously.

“Are you…you’re the ghost, right? James Barnes? And you’re mad I moved in on your space.”

Bucky tilted his hand in a so-so gesture and leaned against the mantel. He was curious about where this would go.

Steve bit his lip. “I can’t move out. I know this is where you lived, but this is my home now, too. And I don’t have the money to, besides. We’re just gonna haveta deal with each other.”

He hummed thoughtfully. It wasn’t too far off what Bucky himself had decided, only this time, his boarder would be aware of his presence. That could actually come with some considerable benefits. Like, maybe he could get Steve to buy him some cigarettes. “So we would be…roommates. Housemates.”

Steve brightened. “Yeah. I mean, as long as you stop doing this haunting bullshit. I haven’t been able to shower naked for a week,” he said, and then blushed.

Bucky squinted at him. “Why wouldn’t you be able to shower naked?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe because _someone_ scared the bejeezus outta me last time I came out the shower naked? Doesn’t exactly make for a relaxing experience. Wasn’t eager for a second round.”

He blinked. “I wouldn’t have done that _twice_. That’s boring.”

“Oh, obviously—”

“What’ve you even been wearing in the shower?” he interrupted, somewhat flabbergasted. “A full-body ski suit?”

Steve raised his eyebrows and chuckled—chuckled! Bucky was still reeling from the fact of having a conversation with anyone at all, and now he made someone laugh! What a day. “Ghost’s got jokes. I wore a swimsuit. Gets the job done but it’s not a real comfortable shower, so. No more haunting, alright? Ya wanna enter a room, ya do it through an _open_ door and ya do it visibly. Got it?”

Bucky wasn’t sure if ghosts could really control their manifestations like that. But since he wasn’t _actually_ a ghost, all he had to do was stay in the human plane, like he did when he was the cat. If he could have more conversations like this one…let’s just say that before today, there’d been no upside to the Barnes’ leaving. “Sure, I can do that,” he shrugged.

It seemed Steve didn’t know how to take an easy win. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “And no scaring the cat, either. Or my friends, when they come over.”

Bucky laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. Me’n the cat get along fine. You might say we’re kindred spirits. And I got no problem with your friends. Just don’t bring any unsavory types over.” 

Steve mouthed ‘unsavory types’ at him mockingly. Bucky stuck his tongue out at him. The conversation devolved from there.

—————————————————————————

“Yo, man, you’ve been kinda cooped up for a while,” Sam said after he’d settled at Steve’s kitchen table with a cup of coffee. It was still just a card table—it was embarrassing living in a house with no real furniture when he was literally a furniture artist, but needs must.

He shrugged. “That’s kinda how the first months of a reno go, though. Takes over your life just to make the house livable.”

“Okay. What’s your timetable like on that? You can’t sleep on a cot much longer, Steve, your back will stage a rebellion.”

“My neck will join the cause, I think,” he said, rubbing at it, then snorted. “Uh, _viva_ _la_ reno… _valucion.”_

Sam stared at him in grim disappointment and opened his mouth to roast him, when they heard the warm laugh Steve had begun to recognize as James’. Disembodied, of course, and directly behind Sam. Even though he’d made him swear not to haunt him, he found that James had a very liberal definition of the word ‘haunt’. 

He sighed as Sam put his mug down with precise care. He was hoping to understand James more before he had to explain it to someone less accepting than Wanda. 

“What. The _fuck was that, Steven,_ ” Sam whispered hoarsely, pointing his finger at where the sound came from.

“Uh,” Steve laughed nervously. “Wouldja believe me if I said ‘nothing’?”

His friend’s right eye twitched. 

“Okay, yeah, I knew that’d be a stretch. Huh. Um. You’ve, you know Wanda, right? And how she’s a witch?”

“Yes. I know Wanda,” Sam said, eyes narrowing like he was suspicious of this line of logic. (That made two of them.)

“Great. So. She’s uh, confirmed some things, ya know. This house is real old. Lots of people have lived here over the years, and, died here. Also. And. I met one of them. He…lives here. Too,” he finished, very carefully avoiding trigger words like ‘ghost’ and ‘haunted’. 

Sam’s eyes were almost closed from how much he was squinting. “Died here,” he quoted blankly. 

“Sam—” Steve began.

“Hang on. Wait wait wait wait. Just hold on. Back up. Are you saying this house is actually no-joke witch-Wanda-confirmed one hundred percent free range organic fucking _haunted_ , Steven Grant?!”

He winced and rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Um. Well, I asked him to stop with the haunting stuff—”

“Ohhhhhhhh,” Sam yelled, eyes now the size of dinner plates and a hysterical strain in his voice that was funny enough to make Steve snort and then feel a little bad for it when Sam pointed at him with clear accusation. “Oh, you asked him, _okay_. That’s okay then. Nope. Steven! Grant! Rogers! You let me watch horror movies! In your haunted! Ass! House! I am a black _man_ ,” he whisper screeched, and Steve couldn’t hold his laughter in anymore. 

After a few seconds of watching Steve laugh, loud big belly laughs that he’d been told were contagious, Sam couldn’t help but join in reluctantly. 

“Oh, you absolute fucker,” Sam sighed, and wiped a weary hand over his face once they’d calmed a little. “Why would you do this to me? I’m never coming over again.” 

Steve snorted and tried to rein it in before he got lost to laughter again. “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m not sure how serious you were, but, this is going to be my home. I want my friends to feel safe and welcome here. I’m sorry if I ruined that. But James—that’s his name—he’s really not so bad. Not like the movies at all,” he said.

Sam’s shoulders slumped and he looked at him sideways with one eye, other still covered by his hand. “Man, why you gotta go full earnest Leave It To Beaver when I tryna be mad at you. You know it’s impossible to stay mad at you when you bring that face out.”

“I know,” Steve said, with a little wry smile. “Sorry.”

“Ugh, stop. I forgive you, you terrible monster, but you better believe I’m gonna use this to win every argument from now until neither of us can walk. Put the face away. Get your wallet. We are going to a bar and I am going to imbibe several beers, and you,” he pointed sternly, “are going to purchase all of them for me.”

“You got it,” he agreed, then paused when they got to the door. “Uh, so, do you want to meet him? James?”

Sam took a slow, deep breath through his nose, held it, and let it out just as slowly. “Steven—”

Steve laughed and locked the door behind them. “I’m kidding, Sam. You can meet him next week, after you’ve called your mom and all your sisters to process.”

“You really are the worst,” Sam said, but he was smiling. 

Later that night, he got a call from a friend from college who’d joined the local art scene at the same time as him, but on the curation end. “Angie?” he picked up, surprised. “I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you so soon after your opening. I figured you’d be too swamped with buyers and admirers to remember the little people.”

“There’s nothing forgettable about you, Brooklyn. And the gallery—oh, Steve. It’s just awful. Just yesterday a water main broke and the whole place has water damage to repair. I barely got all the art out without the pieces sustaining irreparable damage, and thank god for my insurance, the water damage is covered since it was the city’s fuckup—”

“Oh hell, Ange, that sucks, and so soon after your grand opening! How did the inspectors miss the problem with the main?” he wondered, and then shook his head at himself. “That doesn’t matter, sorry. How can I help?”

“You’re an angel, Rogers. That’s why I called ya. Knew you’d come through in a pinch. Here’s the deal: I got no room in my fuckin’ tiny apartment for all this very expensive art and no extra money to cover getting secure storage space for it. Do you have extra space in your storage unit, the one ya put all your furniture in?”

He chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip and closed his eyes to visualize the storage container when he’d been there a week or so ago. He scratched his jaw to stall and then admitted regretfully, “I’m real sorry, but it’s full up to the top. Plus it’s not air conditioned so I wouldn’t feel comfortable puttin’ your artists’ pieces through that.”

Angie made such a despairing noise that Steve felt pierced with an urgency to fix it. “Well, hang on, though. We’ll figure something else out.”

“I hope to god we do, because I am using my furniture like lily pads to jump around my apartment, and I have one square foot of open space in front of my fridge and front door. I tell ya, Brooklyn, you haven’t lived till you’ve seen an Italian New Yorker leapfrog over several million dollars of art to grab toothpaste. I haven’t been able to shower and my hair is…my god, I can’t look at it, let’s talk about something else.”

Steve chuckled. “Actually, that gives me an idea. I think it should work. Up to you, though.”

“ _Say the idea!_ ” she yelled, in a pitch perfect imitation of Kylie from ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’.

“Alright, already. So I got a pretty good amount of space in my new house, and it’s air conditioned. Got a security system too, had it installed last month. You could use my attic, or my extra bedroom if you want it closer to temp controlled. What do ya think?”

She was silent for a few seconds before chiming in. “Sorry, I was just imagining being able to walk around on the floor again. _Yes_ , Steve! Yes, you’re the best. All my other friends are damn flakes. ‘Oh no, Angie, you can’t store art here, I have a cat’ and ‘I’m so sorry but we’re having a baby in a year so we need to purify the space’ and ‘Wow, Ange, I’d love to help, but I’m allergic to _art_ ’. Fuckin’ unreliable, the lot of ‘em,” she ranted.

“Thanks, I think,” he laughed.

“You’re welcome, pal. I’ll have my guys bring all this over to yours—when’s a good day? Pick your poison, I’m at your command.”

“How’s Wednesday at 4?”

“Wednesday’s _great!_ Wait. What day is today?” Angie asked. Steve thought she was only half joking.

—————————————————————————

Natasha: **so I’m hearing some interesting things down at the grape wine cooler** 🍇🍇

Steve: **??**

Natasha: **bc grape vines and gossip and water coolers and gossip**

Natasha: **conflating cliches is the new tiktok, steve**

Natasha: **get with the teens**

Steve: **Oh, no, I got the joke. I was ?? about the hot goss you apparently have**

Natasha: 🤔 **cant decide if i hate or love the fact that steven grandpa rogers just used the phrase hot goss**

Steve: **hello, fellow youths**

Natasha: **hate it**

Natasha: **-skateboards away-**

Steve: **You know I don’t actually care about the hot goss, right.**

Natasha: **well, since its about you, its lukewarm at best**

Steve: **Hm.**

Natasha: **IVE GOT U NOW**

Steve: **Alright, already, go on with it.**

Natasha: 🍇🍇🍇🍇

Natasha: **so i heard from** ⚡️ **Pietro**

Natasha: **who heard from** 🔮 **Wanda**

Natasha: **who confirmed what** 🐦 **Sam said**

Steve: **that you had a boyfriend that looked like a girlfriend that I had in February of last year**

Natasha: **that you have a** 👻 **gHoST** 🙀

Natasha: **no dammit steve u ruined my climax**

Natasha: **DONT say thats what she said**

Steve: **I wasn’t going to say that.**

Natasha: **suuuuuuuuure**

Natasha: **not gonna deny the ghost thing huh**

Natasha: **in ter est ing**

“Whoya talkin’ to?” James said, voice right next to his ear, and he ducked instinctively, before turning to glare. Thankfully, he had (mostly) taken Steve’s new boundaries to heart, and he was physically there, all 6’1” of him. Since they’d come to their agreement, James had taken to lounging about against whatever flat surface was nearest in whatever room he was working on, casually looking anywhere but Steve. He acted, in fact, very much like Princess Peach did—it made sense they would get along. Though he hadn’t seen the little guy in a few days… Steve hoped he was doing okay.

Every now and then, James would get bored with pretending to ignore him and instead would come over to poke at his tools and ask question after question about what he was doing, though usually it was _why_ Steve would do something that interested him most:

“What’s that? A ‘lug nut’? Sounds dirty. Why’s it called that?”

“Steve, why are you squirting cream cheese at the tiles? What! It looks like cream cheese, I call it cream cheese.”

“Ya know, a lot of this would go faster if you had some extra hands.”

To that, Steve had raised an eyebrow. “Sure. You offerin’? Cause otherwise, it’d go a lot faster if you shut your trap for a single goddamned second.”

Today, James was in a badgering mood, it seemed. He was leaning over Steve’s shoulder to see the texts on his screen. Steve elbowed him back but he just grinned, bouncing on his heels. “Looks like the cat’s outta the bag,” he said, and then laughed long and loud as if he had made a particularly clever joke. 

James’ hair was a little frizzy today from the summer humidity, and it flopped around when he threw his head back. His hair was normally a gentle curl and always looked soft to the touch. It really was fascinating, how tangible and present he was. Did he sweat? Did he eat? Surely not. Why would he sweat—or react to humidity, actually, if he was a ghost?

“Your hair,” Steve blurted out, and then winced at the questioning look he got for it. “It’s frizzy today.”

_God, Steve, who let you out of the zoo, you ape._

James gave him a confused frown and patted his head. “Huh,” he said, and then dashed out of the room without another word. Before Steve could worry that he had somehow gravely insulted his housemate, he heard him yell in an excited tone, from what seemed to be the bathroom, “So it is!”

He came dashing back in, hair even more hectic from all the hullabaloo. He was grinning. Steve noticed James had a dimple in his right cheek when he grinned like that. It was not adorable at all and he had absolutely zero emotions about it. “I don’t think I’ve stayed in the material realm long enough before to get frizzy hair! But I guess it makes sense, since his was always such a mess every summer. Shit, did he ever whine about it,” he said, chuckling at what was clearly a fond memory. 

He didn’t seem aware that he’d let anything slip, so Steve simply tucked the information and the questions it triggered away, next to the many other mysteries his housemate contained, to be processed later. His phone buzzed in his hand.

Natasha: **your lack of an answer is kind of an answer**

Steve: **What do you want to know?**

Natasha: **I think I’d like to meet this ghost of yours before I decide that.**

 _Oh boy_ , he thought, _capitalization_ and _punctuation? Must be serious._

“She seems sharp,” James said, again peering over his shoulder. 

“Would you stop that,” he grumbled. “And yeah, Nat’s real sharp. She can tell a person’s character from one interaction. It’s scary. Useful, though.”

“Ah,” he said, leaning against the doorframe Steve had just yesterday finished re-installing. “It’s a shovel talk.”

Steve laughed, surprised. “How do you know about shovel talks?”

“I knew a guy who had five little sisters. He basically invented the shovel talk. Had it down to an art. Besides, I _have_ watched TV before.”

“Jeez, five? I can’t imagine what that was like. I’m an only child—probably the only way my parents could afford my medical nonsense.”

“It was loud. Hectic, always something happening, no one ever really alone,” James mused, that fond far-seeing look appearing in his gray-blue eyes once again. Steve held his breath, hoping for more. “Marya was the favorite, the youngest, so she was always getting someone to do her chores for her. Rebecca hated it, used to stomp to James and complain that it wasn’t fair, would he braid her hair for school…” he trailed off distantly, and then with no warning, simply disappeared.

Steve gave a start. “James? James? Hey, pal, are you okay?” 

James didn’t reappear for the rest of the day. 

Steve had no idea if it was by choice or not—what if it took energy to remember his old life, energy he had too little of? What if he was permanently diminished because of the effort of staying corporeal like Steve had demanded? _Shit_. He hoped to god James was just taking the time to process. Hell, he’d rather he was mad at him and planning to put peanut butter in his hair while he was asleep or some shit, than to be hurting, fading away quietly, alone. In a plane of existence unreachable to Steve.

It was past time to call Wanda. 

He invited her over for dinner—chicken korma and paneer basmati from his regular place a few blocks west—and they talked for a while about her cats and her brother and how her plants were doing, until she sighed and said, “Steve, I love to catch up, but you did not ask me here to small talk, did you?”

Steve felt awful. “Oh—Wanda— I’ve been a bad friend. Only reaching out when I need something from you. I’m sorry.”

She laughed. “Do not be. I like to be useful to my friends. And you texted me with a link to a bonsai lover’s blog just two days ago. I do not feel, ah, left to rot?”

“Neglected,” he provided, and she nodded. “I’m relieved. You sure you don’t wanna talk some more, play a card game?”

“No,” she said. “Are you serious, Steve? What card game is more interesting than a spirit?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” he said, conceding. She looked excited, and that was enough to relieve Steve of the rest of his guilt. So he told her everything he had tucked away in the box in his mind labeled _James_ , even showing her the copies he’d made of the newspaper with his picture. He knew there was a chance James was even listening in, but there was no harm in that. If he showed up again, maybe Wanda could ask him her questions herself. 

He didn’t show up, but Wanda listened intently until he finished speaking. “Referring to himself as his name, ah, in the third person—well, that’s not too uncommon, for ghosts or spirits. It is his physicality—that you can touch him, that is very strange for ghosts. I think we can definitely rule that out.”

He gaped. “Rule it out? What do you mean? He’s the spitting image,” he insisted, tapping the grainy black and white photo. “He’s gotta be the ghost of James Barnes. What else is there?”

Wanda always had pools of patience as deep as her eyes, but he could tell she did not like being told her own business. “I mean he is not a ghost. He is not a dead echo. He may look like James Barnes, but either Sgt. James Barnes was never human, or your housemate is not his ghost. He is something else entirely.”

—————————————————————————

Natasha: **hey** 💩

Natasha: **so wanda says its not a ghost but u seem pretty convinced**

Natasha: **gimme some haunting symptoms** 👻

Natasha: **pretend im webmd and ur house might have cancer**

Steve laughed. He was taking a water break—or he was, five minutes ago, until Princess Peach trotted out from wherever he’d been hiding to wind around his legs. Now he was trying to get the cat to stay still long enough for him to make sure it hadn’t starved out wherever it went when it wasn’t around the house. He tried rubbing the cat’s back as it brushed against him to feel if its spine was too prominent—it didn’t feel stark against his fingers and his fur was still soft and gleaming. Steve ruffled his neck, and was surprised when Princess let him, instead of clawing at him or darting away in offense. Instead, he arched up into the touch, and Steve smiled to know he had been right. They were totally best buds. 

Natasha’s texts had reminded him of the time passing, and he reluctantly stopped giving Princess Peach the pets it was demanding to look at his schedule for the day again, written as it was in his bullet journal:

MORNING

  * Take meds etc DONE
  * Take out trash and separated recycling (make sure neighbor didn’t put tree limbs in his like a dumbass this time) DONE
  * Go to flea market thrift store etc look for antiques to use on pep’s commish DONE 
  * note: chair/lamp delivery from Hrotha tom 2:30pm BE HOME TO GREET
  * Call Thor re: rec for good plumber DONE



AFTERNOON

  * Finish design for walden couch DONE
  * note: make presentation, sched for next tues/wed morning if poss
  * Work on kitchen cabinets
  * Ask James re: unfinished biz



EVENING

  * Grocery order/list for home depot
  * Laundromat 
  * Draft Ma garden club poster



Well, he wasn’t gonna finish the kitchen cabinets today anyway. 

Steve: **Please don’t wish cancer on my house. I just bought it. You’ll jinx me.**

Natasha: **ur house is haunted, steven**

Natasha: **thats as jinxed as u get** ☠️☠️

Steve: **So you do agree it’s definitely haunted**

Natasha: 🔮 **wanda doesn’t think it is**

Natasha: **tell me y U think it is**

Natasha: **s y m p t o m s** 💉🔬⚗

Natasha: **go**

Steve: **Symptom One: my house contains a ghost**

Steve: **That’s it, that’s all I need.**

Natasha: **ok we’re gonna talk about the fact that u typed out the word for 1 and how it makes you a pedantic little shitass l8er but**

Natasha: **MORE IMPORTANTLY**

Natasha: **im being srs** **here steven**

Natasha: **we’re all being p chill rn but if wanda’s wrong and this is an angry ghost then we’re gonna start insisting you sleep at our houses**

Natasha: **is that what u want steven**

Steve: **Jeez, fine.**

He sent her his research on James Barnes and told her about the shit he’d pulled since Steve had first moved in, including the conversations they’d recently been having. It ended up being kind of nice, to unload it all at once to a person he trusted. Steve knew she had his best interests in mind and had an analytical mind that made her a terror in the courtroom. 

Natasha: **alright fine I will grudgingly agree to allow u to sleep in ur dumb and terrible cot in ur dumb and haunted house** 🏚

Natasha: **but only bc my bed is a queen and I need room to starfish**

Steve: **How kind.**

Steve: **Wait, Nat. You have a guest room. Why would I be sleeping in your bed?**

Natasha: **I have taught u too well, young padawan**

Natasha: **now I must strike** ⚡️ **u down ere u rise against me** 💥

Natasha: 🎶 **ominous space musique** 🎶

Steve: **Nat.**

Natasha: **ugh I can SEE your earnest face even when we text**

Natasha: **I adopted a dog!!** 🍕🐶 **The dog came w a** ☕️ **man. Theyre taking the guest room**

Steve: **Oh hey, you invited Clint to move in?? Congrats! Big step for you.**

Natasha: **big step 4 ANY111** 😾 **whether or not the couple has sex or sleeps in the same room or not**

Steve: **No, I know, I’m sorry. It is. I didn’t mean it like that, but that’s not what matters.**

Natasha: **ugh there it is again**

Steve: **What?**

Natasha: **ur lil earnest face w ur big ol blue eyes, being all SINCERE**

Natasha: **srsly tho, I know u didn’t mean it that way. Just been getting shitty pressure from the sperm and egg donors and projecting**

Natasha: **ur bi! U know all about this erasure nonsense**

Steve: **You will always be the ace queen of my heart, Nat.**

Natasha: 💘💜💞💛❣️❣️

Natasha: **I’m coming over to meet ur “** 👻 **” this saturday @4pm make me ur ma’s manicotti afterwards**

Natasha: **ace queen OUT** ✌️

Steve locked his phone, smiling, and looked up to see the ghost himself, leaning against the kitchen door frame and raising his eyebrows at him. “What?”

“Who ya talking to?” he asked, curious as he always was whenever Steve texted and he couldn’t eavesdrop on the conversation. Bucky didn’t seem to think it was ever a weird thing to ask, so it helped the question feel a little less invasive than it might have been otherwise. 

“Nat,” Steve supplied. “She wants to have a meet and greet with you this Saturday afternoon at 4.”

James tapped his chin in a parody of thinking very hard about it, not doing very well at masking his smirk. “Well, I dunno…I might have something planned. I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to her on that. Y’know, the quarter’s ending soon and we’ve gotta be in the black by then.”

Steve huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes. “You have been watching way too much Mad Men.”

“I can’t watch anything on my own, Steve, I don’t have your password. _You’ve_ been watching way too much Mad Men, and I really need you to pick a new show before I go crazy. What about that super umbrella show? That seemed weird,” he said enthusiastically.

“Umbrella Academy? I was watching that with Ma, I can’t watch an episode without her.”

“Okay? How is this a problem? Invite your ma over, she’s great. And she has better taste in TV than you do,” James said, spreading his hands wide like the solution was obvious. 

Steve massaged his forehead in exasperation. “I can’t invite my Ma over when I have a ghost roommate manifesting wherever he likes. She’s not close-minded, but she _is_ over 55 and I very much do not wanna give my mother a heart attack.”

“So I’ll just not be there physically!” 

“I’m not real comfortable with that. I think it’ll make me twitchy, wonderin’ where ya got off to, even if I know you’re probably just watching with us. Ma knows me better than anyone, and if I’m twitchy, she’ll notice. You’re just gonna have ta deal with my ‘bad taste’,” Steve said, using air quotes.

“What if I promise to stay on the—to manifest the whole time and not do anything weird?”

He didn’t know why this was so important to James, but he supposed he might be a little starved for entertainment too, if he went years between talking to people. Still—“Why would I believe you? You promised not to scare my friends, too, and your invisible laugh behind Sam nearly made him piss himself.”

James laughed. “Come on, Steve, you gotta admit that was funny. But I did it by accident. And since I’ll be present the whole time, it won’t be a problem. It’s—it’s not fair to your ma, having to go so long without seein’ ya. An’ you don’t like it either, I can tell.”

“Oh,” he said, touched. He really hadn’t realized that James had gotten to know him that well, in the short time they’d had this agreement. Although, he guessed it had been a few weeks already—and Ma was bound to notice soon if he didn’t invite her over to see the progress on his bedroom and in the kitchen. “Well, okay. I’ll see if she’s free.”

Steve sent Ma a selfie of him frowning, captioning it: **Wondering when my Umbrella Academy will come home from the war**

Ma replied nearly immediately with a frowning selfie of her own, captioning it: **Do you believe in miracles? Because I have tonight off!!!!!**

An hour or so later, Ma bustled through the front door—she had a key, but she still never came over unless Steve invited her. Once, Steve had asked her why, and she had replied with completely sincere indignance, “You’re an adult, Steven. I’m not going to come into an adult’s house without asking.”

Ma was unique among mothers. This is why he hadn’t given a key to Mama Wilson, who still occasionally knocked on the door without calling ahead, bearing her latest baking experiment for Steve to try. Last month’s had been spicy curry puffs. Steve nearly cried when he took a bite. Sam had laughed at him for days. Tonight, Ma was wearing a light pink gingham-patterned dress with her well-used aqua blue gardening crocs and her long hair in a crown braid that was a little frizzy, like she’d had it in over a long work day. 

“Steven Grant!” she exclaimed, and accepted his hug, squeezing way too tight at the end and lifting him an inch or so off the ground before releasing him, like she had always done since before he could remember.

She wiggled his shoulders back and forth, grinning, “Are you ready for some footbaaaaaaall!”

“I completely regret introducing you to that meme,” he sighed, but was helpless to hold back an answering grin at her familiar and adorable silliness. “But yeah, I’m ready. I got your usual from Curry Place and enough Diet Coke to drown a small yak.”

“How you spoil me,” she said, pinching his cheek in a parody of a doting grandma. Then she looked over his shoulder, and her eyebrows shot into her hairline. “And who’s this?”

He turned and tried not to gawk as James walked down the stairs towards them. Steve hadn’t known he could even change outfits. But it was apparent that he could, because instead of his 40’s era combo of slacks, suspenders, and white collared shirt, he was wearing dark wash bootcut jeans that clung to his thighs and a nice gray henley that turned his eyes to the color of slate. Were those Steve’s Doc Martens?? _Oh god_ , he thought. _I absolutely cannot find a dead guy this attractive. It’s just not right._

It was good that Steve was too busy ogling James to introduce him, because when he got to the bottom of the stairs, he held out his hand for his Ma to shake and said, “Hiya, Mrs. Rogers. I’m Bucky Barnes. Nice ta meet ya. Is it okay if I join your TV marathon?”

“You’re _who_?” Steve muttered, but Ma paid him no mind.

“Well,” she said, in that slightly breathy voice she got when she saw Jimmy Stewart or Grace Kelly on the TV screen, and Steve could _not_ believe this was happening. “Absolutely! Are you Steve’s new boyfriend?” she asked plainly, still holding on to ‘Bucky’s’ hand. He didn’t seem aware that he should mind, seeming mildly touched instead.

“God, Ma! No! He’s just a friend!” Steve screeched, and winced at how much he sounded like his teenage self just then. The only difference was that now his voice didn’t crack. “I mean,” he cleared his throat, “he’s just been helping out with the house some, ya know. He’s been wanting to watch more Umbrella Academy too.”

“A man of good taste,” Ma said, approvingly. Steve rolled his eyes, and Ma slapped him lightly on the back of the head without looking.

“How do you always do that?” he grumbled and she smiled sweetly at him.

“Bring me to the noodles, Steven Grant. I require noodles.”

James—or was it ‘Bucky’? Where the hell had he gotten a nickname, the attic?—continued to look charmed and delighted by Steve’s Ma, who continued to be charmed and delighted right back, and Steve was just the weird asshole in the middle being the only awkward personality in the bunch. Bucky—for he really did seem to respond much quicker and more enthusiastically to the nickname than he ever had for James—was asking his Ma for her opinions on all the characters, as though he hadn’t been there invisibly to hear them himself for the first parts of their watch through.

He got the living room set up with pillows and blankets and the portable projector while Ma heated up the food and doled it onto the few ceramic plates he had brought with him. He shouldn’t have been surprised that she made a plate for Bucky, too, but he was, and by the wink he was thrown on the sly, Bucky had noticed. They settled onto their cushions and Steve tapped the space bar with his toe to start the episode, ignoring the look on Ma’s face when he did it. 

Bucky, who had settled in a seat next to Steve, stabbed his fork in Steve’s pile of noodles, twirled it three times, and popped it into his mouth, eyes sparkling. Steve gaped at him. “That’s weird,” he mouthed without making sound, hoping his Ma didn’t notice. Allison was lit up on the wall, so it was a possibility. Ma loved Allison.

He shrugged but didn’t do it again, seeming very distracted and staring off into the middle distance even after he finished chewing, and didn’t touch his own plate of noodles once.

Ma asked Steve to walk her out to the subway stop, and even though he knew it was just so she could interrogate him properly while they were alone, he agreed. It was late, and she was his Ma. 

“Steven Grant, if you don’t tie that boy down soon, someone else very lucky will, and I will have to hear you refuse to talk about it for the rest of your life,” she began. 

“Ma,” Steve sighed. “It’s not—”

“And don’t you tell me it’s not like that,” Ma interjected. “Don’t forget I raised ya, and I’ve been proud to get to know the person you become at every age. I know you. I can tell when ya like someone as a friend and when you like them romantically. So at least don’t lie ta yourself about it, because there’ll be no use lying ta me about it.”

They were both silent for the next few minutes of their journey, Steve sorting through his feelings and his Ma letting him, as she always did and always would. She linked their arms, tugging him closer to her side.

“I’m…” he began, and then shook his head, switching tracks. “You’re right, of course. It’s just…kinda complicated. There’s more to bein’ with someone than liking them, and there’s a lot more to it where Bucky’s concerned.”

She frowned, getting the same divot between her brows that he knew he got. “D’ya think he doesn’t like ya back? Cause I can tell he does, what with all that stealing your food and winking and lookin’ ya over when you won’t notice.”

Some of that could be explained—the food part mystified him, too, though. He wasn’t sure if ghosts should be able to eat; he’d have to ask Wanda. The looking part—he had thought he was imagining that, but if Ma noticed it, it was definitely happening. The issue was that…Bucky was dead, mostly, in all likelihood. It didn’t matter what the _Ghost_ movie posited. There was no happy ending when you fell in love with a dead man, so Steve wasn’t planning on letting himself trip even near that path. 

He’d just do what he always did when he found a straight or taken friend of his attractive: ignore it, don’t feed the thoughts, and move on to enjoying their company in as platonic a way as he could until it was easy to do again. Shouldn’t be a problem. 

(Dear reader: it was, in fact, a problem.)

Bucky had convinced Steve to indulge in his World War II obsession. So at 4 p.m. that Saturday, they were crowded together on the floor cushions that had become the new preferred seating arrangement for the living room and watching Band of Brothers. They were so focused on what they both agreed was an undeniable amount of sexual tension between Dick and Lewis, that they didn’t hear Natasha’s no-nonsense knock and the subsequent buzz from Steve’s phone as she texted him. 

What Steve _did_ notice, however, was Bucky shooting out of the comfortable slouch he’d been in and sprinting to the front door. Steve leaned back on his hands to see down the hallway to the entrance to see what he was doing. He unlocked and pulled open the door to reveal Nat in a squat in front of it. She was holding a lock picking kit—Steve had given it to her two Christmases ago, so he recognized the neat little wooden box he’d paid extra for it to be carried around in. 

“Don’t do that,” Bucky growled, towering over her. 

She sat back on her heels comfortably, not the least bit intimidated, and looked him over in a calculating manner. He shifted back and forth, holding the door, as though not sure what to do about the situation. Steve got up, wincing at the sound and feeling of his knees cracking, and ambled over to soothe some tempers. _Oh, the irony_ , he thought, _Steve ‘fight me’ Rogers being the peacemaker_. 

“Hey, Nat,” he said. “C’mon in. This hooligan here is Bucky. Bucky, let the nice woman with the lock picking tools inside before some asshole calls the cops on her.”

He had to bodily nudge Bucky to step away from the door to give Natasha enough room to follow him into the kitchen. Natasha mouthed _hooligan_ at him and he shrugged, grinning. He heard Bucky grumbling to himself in the entrance still, and then the _snick_ of the lock turning before he appeared in the kitchen doorway, stalking to tower gloomily behind her. Steve jumped a little when he noticed, but Natasha only stilled, so Bucky made a noise like an old man who had lost a game of bridge to a teenager. 

“I thought we had a deal that you wouldn’t do that anymore, Barnes. I specifically asked you not to scare my friends,” he said, arms crossed.

Bucky looked chagrined, though he did shake himself out of his aggressive posture to affect his usual lean against the kitchen wall. “Yo,” he said to Natasha, giving her a sloppy two-finger salute he had definitely learned from watching Band of Brothers (or maybe M.A.S.H., they’d been on a war kick this week).

Natasha smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. That smile was a courtroom smile. Steve felt suddenly very concerned. That smile was giving his stomach a rumbly feeling. “It’s nice to finally meet you—Bucky, was it? Steve seemed to think you were James Barnes just last week. Would you mind telling me what you are doing in his house, and also, what you are?”

Bucky bared his teeth back and said nothing.

“ _Bozhe, nu i bardak_ 1,” she muttered under her breath.

“ _Ne tvoyo delo_ 2,” Bucky snapped back, clearly out of reflex.

In one smooth motion, Nat tossed a handful of something granular at him with one hand and threw what looked like something glinting and metal with the other. Steve heard himself make a loud noise of protest, but Bucky only looked annoyed, not hurt, and had caught the metal object—shit, Nat, that was a fucking _knife_ —with ease. 

“Hm,” she said. “Not a ghost or a wolf.”

“What the actual _fuck_ , Natasha. Do not throw _knives_ in my _house_ at the people who _live here_ ,” Steve yelled, fed up. Jesus, he hated his friends not getting along.

Natasha looked, of all things, a little hurt. “I’m just trying to protect you, Steve. You don’t even know what he _is_ , and he’s living with you. Aren’t you the least bit concerned?”

Bucky had moved from twirling the knife idly around in his hand to hovering it around the kitchen in a little dance, like a samba. It would be extremely adorable, if it wasn’t a knife, and if Bucky weren’t doing it while glaring at one of Steve’s best friends. The room had darkened around them, despite the sun streaming through the windows and the overhead light on. Steve wasn’t sure how much of this his housemate was actually doing on purpose, and that was what really concerned him.

“Nat. I appreciate that you’re doing what you can to help. But I’ve been living with Bucky for months, and it’s been fine. We get along. He even helps sometimes with the reno. Does it really matter what he is, when who he is is my friend?”

The knife dropped to the ground in a clatter. (Steve instinctively winced about the possibility of it scratching the maple wood flooring he’d just installed last month.) Bucky was staring at him, hands loose at his sides where before they had been crossed defensively, mouth open in happy shock. 

Natasha heaved a deep sigh. “You’ve gotta be practicing these noble speeches to the mirror. I refuse to believe you can be that convincing spontaneously.”

She turned to Bucky and her smile this time was real, and tentative. “You live here. Does he practice them?”

Bucky looked from Steve to her and back again. Finally he met her eyes and Steve saw him try to dredge up an iota of the charm he’d won Steve’s Ma over with. He felt a swell of fondness at the effort both of them were making, just because he’d asked. _I am rich with friends_ , he thought, and then felt very dumb and dramatic about doing so.

After a pause that they all pretended had not lasted for as long as it did, Bucky replied, “Nah. He’s the real McCoy. But he does try to sing Lizzo songs in the shower, and that’s almost as good.”

“ _Try_?” Steve asked indignantly, and Nat and Bucky both burst into a beautiful gale of laughter.

When they calmed down, Bucky still seemed pretty reluctant to be around Natasha for much longer, so he gave another salute and tromped up the stairs. Steve turned to her, and she raised her hands immediately. “I know. But it’s who I am. I won’t apologize for trying to protect my friends, Steve. God knows _you_ never do,” she said pointedly, and he had to give her that.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “What were you testing, anyway? You said ‘not a ghost or a wolf’. Please tell me werewolves don’t exist.”

Natasha shrugged. “I’m not actually sure. They’re in almost every culture, though, just like ghosts, and now we know Bucky is definitely something other than human, so I thought I’d try the most common deterrents. You know, salt and silver.”

“Okay, but if you don’t even know if they exist, why would you assume they were good tests?” he asked, confused.

She smirked. “It didn’t really matter if they worked or not. I needed to provoke him to see if he really was magic and not just some creep who was drugging you to live in your house.”

Steve was, as he was at least once every time they hung out, floored. “Shit, Nat. That’s…really smart.”

“I know. You’re welcome. Has he done the floating objects thing before? Pretty cool trick.”

“Ohhh yeah. Used to do it all the time while I ate breakfast. Little shit-stirrer.”

She uncrossed her arms and started getting the things out of Steve’s boxes and fridge to make manicotti (she’d asked for it enough times that she could basically make it by herself, but she still insisted on Steve being involved, said it tasted better). “So what’s this deal you mentioned to him, about not scaring your friends? Sam wasn’t too shaken up or anything, but he did drive nearly his entire family crazy by ranting nonstop about it, so I’m guessing he’s not too good at following that rule.”

Steve chuckled. “Well, yes and no. What happened with Sam was an accident, apparently—he laughed at something we were saying, but he wasn’t manifesting because Sam was over and I hadn’t told you guys about him yet. But he hung out with me and Ma a few days ago and he didn’t do anything too weird or magical. I mean, he did take a bite of my food before I could, but that’s the human kind of weird so Ma just thought he wanted to date me.”

Natasha’s whole face lit up at the mention of his Ma. “I love your mom. How is she? Still on night rotation for peds this month?”

“Yeah, that’s a little rough. Kids are extra emotional at night, ya know. Everything’s scarier and everything hurts more and mosta their parents can’t stay overnight with ‘em. She loves helping but it can be hard to see every night.”

She hummed and nodded sympathetically. “Email me her schedule for the next few months, I’ll find a good day to bring her to a spa. It’ll do me some good to soak up some Sarah time and I’m sure she could use it.”

He was touched and agreed, but he knew it wasn’t just for his sake that Nat was doting on his ma. Her relationship with her own parents was strained to breaking point at the best of times, so after the first Thanksgiving Steve brought her home and Ma hugged her so tight she couldn’t breathe, she became a kind of extra sibling. He’d known Sam and been close to the Wilsons for so long that they felt like cousins, but he and his ma knew Sam would be taken care of, so they did their best on the holidays to keep Natasha feeling involved and loved. So far she had done everything she could to return the favor in a million thoughtful ways, and once again Steve couldn’t believe the stupidity of her parents for throwing a relationship with such a great person away.

 _Their loss_ , he thought, as they finished the manicotti and set it to bake in the oven he’d gotten installed only a month or so prior. Sure, the cabinets were still unpainted and lined up on the floor opposite the counters above which they’d be hung, but he could make a hot meal with his best friend in a house he owned, and it felt damn good.

They pulled the dish out to cool on the stovetop, sprinkling more cheese on top because Steve was taking a lactaid pill anyway so they might as well go crazy with it. Princess Peach slowly slinked into the room and he smiled, delighted to see him again and to have a chance to show him off to Nat. “Aw, hey there, buddy! Nat, look who came to see what’s cookin’?”

Princess let out a warbling and piteously high _mrow_ , as though deeply pained to be introduced, and flopped to his side on the floor. Natasha cooed, “Ooh, isn’t he a big raccoon boy! Look at you!”

He glared at her and flipped over onto his other side to face the wall instead, but she only laughed. “Oh, what a tiring life you must lead… What’s his name, Steve?”

“Okay, first of all—” 

“Oh boy.”

“—I didn’t name him, this was the name his last owners gave him a real long time ago—twenty years or something—so you can aim your laughter at them. It’s…Princess Peach.”

“I’m sorry, _what_?”

Steve looked pained. “His name is Princess Peach.”

“Oh,” Nat said, trying to look sympathetic and instead looking a little constipated, “that’s…so terrible. How…sorry I am for your plight, brave Princess Peach,” she deadpanned towards the cat, who hissed a little. 

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. I know ya want to.”

Permission so granted, bubbles of laughter rolled from her like water from an artesian well, and she leaned against Steve until he felt himself start to chuckle too. It was almost like Princess Peach knew they were making fun of him, because he stood up huffily and began to bathe his leg with his tongue, as though he were making a point to be the bigger person.

They plated up, still making little Super Mario jokes to keep the other smiling, and went to eat at the card table. Steve had recently bent his ‘no real furniture until the room is done’ rule to bring in some nice wicker kitchen chairs he got from a friend in a Christmas art swap a few years back—his back was starting to hurt from the plastic ones. And besides, it was rude to his guests, he had reasoned. The second he set his plate down, Princess Peach’s tabby brown paw was suddenly there, snagging a cheesy noodle on his claw and darting to eat it under cover of a cardboard flap. 

“Oh my god, what?” Steve asked, stunned, and laughed incredulously.

Natasha smiled too, but she was staring at Princess Peach intently now, as though solving a puzzle and suspicious of its likely solution. The same way she had just stared at Bucky an hour ago. He dug into his manicotti casserole thing—remembering just in time to pop a lactaid pill so he wouldn’t have a miserable night. Nat was chewing slowly.

“Steve,” she said, “I don’t think your cat is a cat.”

“Mmm?” he asked, mouth full.

“I’m not saying it’s a raccoon or some other animal. I know it is, right now, a cat. And I’m not sure, obviously. But if we’re going along with the magical creature theme, I think he might be Bucky. As a cat.”

Princess Peach’s ears flicked and swiveled. Steve swallowed too quickly and had to cough to clear his throat. “Uhhmhmm. Uh. I don’t really think so? I mean. Look at him. Why would Princess Peach lick himself with his tongue if he’s not really a cat. An’ he hasn’t done anything uncatlike, either. I feel like it’s one of those things of seeing stripes and yelling zebra.”

She rolled her eyes at his cat, who was now looking very catlike indeed, staying very still in a neat loaf shape on the floor. “ _Vsyo samoi prihoditsya delat_ 3,” she grumbled.

Despite not moving, Princess’ ears still swiveled toward her. She walked over and stood next to him. “ _Ty sam naprosilsya. So svoimi sekretami. Tak shto ne kysat'sya. Beshenstva mne eshyo ne hvatalo._ 4”

And she scooped him up by the scruff of his neck, supporting his butt so he wouldn’t choke. Princess Peach hung there, hissing and lashing out with all his limbs as she deftly dodged them, staring him down. Steve was saying, “Hey! Nat, seriously, stop—” when something extraordinary happened.

Princess Peach used his tail to twist in on himself, and as though turning some invisible corner, disappeared entirely. Nat stared dumbfounded at her empty hands. Directly next to her, Bucky stepped sideways into view in just the same way as Princess Peach had disappeared. He shook his wavy hair out of his eyes like he’d been in a hurry and glanced at Steve a little sheepishly. 

_Fuck, my cat and Bucky have the same color eyes._

Natasha took three big steps back—Steve was faintly glad to know he wasn’t the only one having some difficulties about this.

Bucky’s mouth was set in a mulish line and he snarked at Nat, “ _Net u menya beshenstva. Mozhno i povezhliveie._ 5”

She nodded blankly, mind clearly running a thousand calculations on what this changed about the world for her. Steve couldn’t tell what conclusion she came to, and frankly, he was more concerned right now with what this experience changed in _his_ world. Also, this was the second time his probably-not-a-ghost roommate spoke Russian. It’s not like Steve thought he knew everything about the guy, but he didn’t expect it at all.

 _Do I have a fucking crush on my magical cat? Is that what my life has come to??_ he thought, a little panicked.

“Uh, hey there, pal, how ya doin’?” Bucky asked, hands twitching.

He looked, well, nervous, standing there in his bare feet. Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen his toes before. For some reason it made Bucky look extremely vulnerable. He realized he’d just been gaping like a fish at him for an unflattering amount of time. He cleared his throat and pushed some manicotti in his mouth to give himself longer to have an excuse not to talk, because, god, what do you say.

Apparently, you walk over to your newest and most unusual friend, clap him on the shoulder like you’re some kind of high school economics teacher slash football coach, and say: “I’m swell, buddy.”

 _Swell??_ Steve wanted to punch himself in the face. _I have never once used that word in my life. What am I, a Gilbert Godfrey sketch?_

From over Bucky’s shoulder, Natasha mouthed ‘ _swell_ ’ at him with raised eyebrows and a grin that said she would be calling Sam the second she got home. 

Bucky didn’t look any less nervous, but he nodded anyway and gave him a small half smile in thanks. “Good. Um, I’m gonna, d’ya mind if I…” he hooked his thumb towards the stairs through the doorway, “skedaddle,” he finished, wincing slightly. 

“Sure,” he said quickly, hoping he wouldn’t turn and see Nat now mouthing ’ _skedaddle_ ’ at him and waggling her eyebrows like a total dork.

As soon as Bucky’s footsteps retreated from the top of the stairs, Natasha let herself begin to cackle, pointing at Steve, who sighed. 

“You!” she said, cackling more. “You awkward gay loser!” she yelled. 

He tried not to smile but it was hard not to, the way she was going on. “Yeah, pretty much,” he agreed, and sat down to stuff more cheesy manicotti in his mouth before his lactaid stopped working. He needed the comfort of carbs even more now than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "Dear God, what a mess." Back
> 
> 2\. "Butt out." Back
> 
> 3\. "I have to do everything myself." Back
> 
> 4\. "You asked for this, you know. By not being forthright. So no biting. I don’t want rabies." Back
> 
> 5\. "I don’t have rabies. That’s just rude." Back


	3. Bodies Are a Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky explores the joys and follies of food (and of trolling Steve). Steve gets some answers. And two men find out exactly how dangerous a domovoi can be.  
> ~  
> “Wait—are you still gonna grab my food? Because, Barnes, you should know the two rules of war: never start a land war in Asia in the winter time, and never challenge a Rogers unless you want it to end with your ass in a dumpster behind a Waffle House.”
> 
> Bucky laughed. “Wordy rule.”
> 
> Steve shrugged. “I don’t make the rules. Ma does. You gonna tell my Ma that she’s wrong?”
> 
> “I see your point,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today’s is a charming Russian lullaby called “Sleep”:  
> “Sleep-sleep-sleep  
> Don't lie close to the bed side  
> Otherwise a grey wolf will come  
> And bite you.”
> 
> So grateful to my artist [Mai](https://maichan808.tumblr.com) and my beta [Teej](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_or_something/). 
> 
> Gonna post a chapter every day at 6-8PM EST till Friday!

Bucky would give him this much: Steve stopped trying to get him to eat the terrible animal food around the third time he refused it (read: hissed at it and disappeared around a corner).

There was, upon reflection, a hilarious cosmic irony to the fact that the first offerings he would get in over thirty years were cans of wet cat food entitled ‘Fancy Feast Salmon Flavor’. (It was the word ‘flavor’ that really got to him.) Not only was it not suitable for domovye, it wasn’t suitable for humans—Bucky doubted it was suitable for _cats,_ for whom it was manufactured. Don’t get him wrong, he knew about gift horses and mouths. He once subsisted for four years straight on a thin watery oat mixture that was all a particularly poor Ylva Barnes (it was Barinov, back then, before they anglicized it on Ellis Island) could scrounge together. But she always put a little bit of their precious supply of butter in it for him, even in the winter time, and her care made the oat gruel taste like gold going down. She never had to worry about any cold drafts or mice or bugs, Bucky made sure of that. 

His point was…he knew how to appreciate the thought behind an offering above the offering itself, okay, he wasn’t ungrateful. But _really_? 

_Fancy Feast_ , Rogers?

Thankfully he stopped leaving it out fairly early on after he moved in to the Barnes’ (former) house. It wasn’t even really an offering, since Steve wasn’t family, just a boarder, or, Bucky amended grudgingly after their recent conversation, a housemate. It had no metaphysical value—if an offering from a random non-Barnes kid with way too many health problems had a nutritional label, it would look something like this:

**Nutrition Facts**

1 serving per container

**Serving size** **1 tin Fancy Feast**

**Amount per serving**

**Calories** 0

**Total Fat** 0g

**Cholesterol** 0mg

...You get the drift.

Still, even if there was no real substance to it, it’d be nice to get _something_. Just because it wouldn’t give him energy didn’t mean it wouldn’t taste good. Bucky had seen Steve eat an entire bag of potato chips, okay, he knew about empty calories. He kind of missed eating, besides. He’d never tried it while on the physical plane, and he wondered if there were more exciting things his body might do or feel if he did—for example, body heat. Body heat was _crazy_. Like tangible auras or some shit? And everyone had them?? 

Anyway. Bucky hadn’t given up on training Steve simply because they had an, accord, of sorts, now. This just made it easier to implement. He didn’t have to throw shit around to get his attention anymore—although he might still do that. For fun. Maybe if his housemate was being a real dipshit about something, or if Bucky wanted to exist and be looked at very badly that day. 

He started with offerings. It wouldn’t really count if he had to direct Steve to do them—he wasn’t altogether sure they could count at all, but, he reasoned, it never hurt to get him into the practice of doing it, just in case. Plus, he’d get to try all the food he saw Steve making or bringing in from the front door.

If he were to make a guide for Steve (which, of course, he wasn’t going to be doing, because where was the fun in that), it would read as follows:

**An uncomprehensive guide to the proper domovoi offering (abridged version):**

  * Imagine your favorite person—political figure, actor, religious icon, or relative—is coming over for dinner or tea, and you only have an hour’s warning, so you can’t make a feast. What can you make in that time that shows your hospitality and fully expresses your gratefulness for this person’s life’s work? Now what if they had a stomach the size of a teacup—what would you give them? It is with this mindset that you should approach offerings.
  * Store bought offerings are generally to be avoided. The exceptions to this are coffee, tea, cigars/cigarettes, and alcohol, which should be chosen carefully so that they are very finely made.
  * What took the most work for a household to make, if they didn’t have access to a modern grocery store? These are good choices for offerings, or ingredients to use in offerings: cheese, butter, preserves, pickled vegetables or fruits, choice cuts of meat, and so on.
  * What do you make once a year for special holiday meals? Domovye are celebrating with you, so don’t neglect to share a piece of that family tradition with them.
  * It’s a good idea to make something extra nice for your domovoi if you’re asking them for a specific favor. Generosity and cleanliness is the way to their heart, but bribery sure as hell doesn’t hurt. 
  * You should make offerings between once a week and once a month. If you’re real down on your luck, one good offering for every season will suffice. Less than that, you risk insulting the domovoi—and endangering the stability and safety of the entire house.



Bucky imagined writing this all out on a little leaflet, like the ones Becca used to bring home from all those political rallies, and hiding it under Steve’s pillow (the one he’d had to replace after he shredded it post-beeping incident). _It would certainly be informative,_ he thought, _since he still thinks I’m just some weird werecat._

The most important thing to train Steve to recognize about offerings was the concept of prioritization. He started when Sarah was over, because he knew Steve wouldn’t say much in response with his ma right there. And again as a cat, with the pasta—although that had not been as tasty (maybe he had less taste buds as a cat?) and also ended fairly disastrously. Things were kind of tense around the house for a couple days, until Steve seemed to shake himself out of it and Bucky could look him in the eye again. He was still avoiding showing up in cat form, though. He wasn’t sure how Steve would react, and part of him didn’t want to know.

Tonight he’d try again—as good a time as any. Especially since today was his day off so he was making bolognese. When Bucky stepped into the physical plane in the hallway by the kitchen, it smelled fucking delicious. (Steve, he had discovered, could make only three dishes very well: bolognese, chicken noodle soup, and french toast. Everything else he tried seemed to disappoint him in some way, judging by his reactions.) 

Steve looked up when he entered the room and shot him a pleased smile. “Hey, Buck,” he said, as he finished scooping the sauce over his pasta. Bucky noted carefully where he’d laid his fork and sidled around to it casually.

“Hey. Smells good.”

“Thanks. It’s Ma’s recipe, so she’s the mastermind.”

He talked about his Ma almost as much as Bucky was sure that his Ma talked about him. It was very endearing. The first few times she’d come over to help with the house, he’d followed them, invisible, all around the house just to watch them interact. (Listen, he needed some wholesome family content in his life to balance out the awfulness that had been the Barnes in the 90s, okay. And Steve’s Ma holding Steve’s chin still so she could rub at some grease on his cheek while the normally irritable man simply stood there with patient amusement and let her do it—that was extremely fucking wholesome.) 

Steve turned away from the stove with his full bowl and he was in place with utensil in hand, ready and waiting. Bucky scooped a heaping forkful of sauced pasta and stuck it in his mouth before Steve’s eyes could even widen. He darted out of the room as fast as he could, but as he did he heard Steve growl a loud and angry, “What the _FUCK_.”

He laughed to himself, mouth still full of flavor so rich it nearly hurt him to taste it, and hid in the unfinished second bedroom to savor it in relative peace. Bucky was—having some difficulty describing the sensations, even after several times of trying Steve’s food. He worked carefully on categorizing them, eager to feel again what eating was like on the physical plane, since he’d only had that one bite of Steve’s noodles last week.

Imagine the first moment you remember accidentally cutting yourself—chopping onions, perhaps, you look away, tears welling up till fog is all you can see. The exclamation of your skin as the knife slips catches your attention, but no pain yet, no pain until you wipe your eyes and see the little drop of red blooming there. Plum tomatoes, carrots, garlic. That heavy pulling ache, that demanding sharpness—this was part of what he tasted. But also, the wet brown smell of a field just turned by determined oxen, pulped and rained on the night before. Ground beef, herbs. Definitely some of Ylva’s winter supply of butter. Milk, time, sugar. The profound sweetness of a mother being given her daughter to hold, fresh from her own body and seeking a return. 

Store-bought dried spaghetti though. Tasted like its cardboard box and the tired, underpaid hands that packed it. A bit disappointing in comparison.

No metaphysical value—he could tell, just from how small he still felt—but it was a hell of an experience. Seeing Steve’s mouth drop open in plain shock had been nearly as satisfying as the taste itself. Bucky, frankly, was going to _enjoy_ this.

He couldn’t just pop out of nowhere to do this, though—he did agree to enter every room physically, and after all, he was a domovoi of his word. He enjoyed the thought of a challenge, but he was glad he still had that fork he stole, because it would sure come in handy in the next week.

Steve sat down at his card table that next morning—the kitchen wasn’t done, and Bucky had learned that Steve didn’t move any real furniture into a room until it was completely finished, which took forever because he was an insufferable perfectionist—with a piece of cinnamon toast. Bucky had hummed and looked out the window for the five minutes it took him to make it, trying to appear very intrigued by the family of bluejays settling in the bush outside the kitchen window. Steve glanced at him only once or twice. He had probably already slated last night’s event as a one-off. Bucky suppressed an anticipatory giggle and waited for Steve to start washing his hands, toast set behind him on the table. He took a huge, wonderfully defined bite out of it and walked into the living room very calmly. 

A minute later: “Who the— _Bucky!_ Come on!”

He buried his face in his hands, almost choking on the bread from snorting at how exasperated he sounded. He took a deep breath to calm himself and turned to figuring out what cinnamon toast was like. 

Steve got most of his groceries from a co-op and the local farmer’s market, so it was good bread, nutty and thick with a real crust. None of that commercial bread crust his family’d recently made do with, the kind that was just as soft and weak as the meat of the bread, only browner. No, this was calloused floury knuckles digging into dough, ravens plucking at the tops of wheat as its dry leaves rustled against its brethren, tree roots burrowing deep to avoid the oncoming cold. Yeast, sprouts, Ylva’s butter. 

The brush of an alley cat’s dirty fur against your hand, after weeks of convincing it to trust you—the sweet satisfied arch of its back into the comfort you offer. Sugar, salt, cinnamon. When you’re running outside during a drought, and the topsoil turns at your feet’s passing from a thin suggestion on the ground to great plumes of dust, how it hits the back of your throat like the dry sun itself. The strong spicy tea you drink when you get back home.

Heartier than Bucky expected, to be honest. It used to seem like a paltry choice for breakfast when he saw Steve make it at first, but he got it now. Speaking of Steve, he heard him put his plate away and craned his head from the position he’d taken on one of those terrible camping chairs to watch him enter. 

He pointed at him, glaring, but he could tell that he was also kind of amused, so Bucky disregarded him when he said, “I dunno what your game is this time, but it’s dumb and unsanitary so you should stop.”

He held a hand to his chest in mock insult. “Unsanitary! Didn’t you say I was a ghost? How can a ghost carry germs?”

Steve snorted, “That might be a good point if you _were_ a ghost, and since you can apparently eat food, I’m pretty sure you’re not. I don’t even wanna know what weird supernatural germs you got goin’ on in there,” he said, gesturing to where Bucky was tipping his chair back at a precarious angle, making childish faces at him, and then, as though unable to help himself, making foolish faces in response.

He rubbed a hand over his face after a minute of this—it took a clear effort of willpower to stop crossing his eyes at Bucky, who was waggling his fingers at him still. “Just. Will you please stop eating my food without asking?”

His chair thumped back to the floor as Bucky stood up, smiled sweetly at him, and ruffled his blond hair as he tromped up the stairs without replying. 

“Buy a nice old house, I said. It’s got real character, I said. Make friends with the ghost, I said. Fuckin’ can’t stand myself sometimes,” he was aware of Steve muttering to himself in the living room, and Bucky laughed.

Steve had a meeting with a client, so he couldn’t steal any of his lunch, but that was okay. The more times he did this, the harder it would become to do it. Bucky washed his fork in the sink and plucked at the tines, thinking scheming thoughts as the sun moved across the sky and the bluejays flitted and foraged. 

His housemate walked through the front door late in the afternoon, toed his boots off, threw his tartan scarf over the coat rack, and let his heavy computer bag slump against the wood bench built into the wall there. He pushed his hands into the small of his back and arched backwards and rotated side to side, a cascading series of cracks sounding out as he realigned his spine. 

_Mother of fuck, pal, do you ever need a massage_ , Bucky thought, staring at the asymptotic line Steve’s thin strong fingers made as they rubbed at a knot in his back. Then, he blinked, cracked his neck the way boxers do before a fight, and shook out his arms with an adorable little jump. This was his ritual for coming home, and he did it every day without fail, unless someone was with him when he got in. It was the one time Bucky allowed himself to break their little accord—he watched invisibly, because. Well, it felt a little sacred, like an intimate physical prayer. It felt like he wouldn’t be allowed to watch it if Steve knew he was there, and Bucky really didn’t want to miss it. If he was an addict for anything, it was for this.

“Buck?” Steve called as he walked past him to the living room. 

Bucky reentered the material plane on the stairs and tromped down to join him. “’Sup,” he said.

Steve raised a judging eyebrow. “‘Sup’? Where’d ya get that?”

“You realize that the Barnes lived here in the 90s, right? I saw so many reruns of Fresh Prince. Also you gave me the password to your computer, so I’ve been surfing the web waves.”

“Okay, one,” Steve started, “I gave that password to you for emergency use only, not for you to catch up on your soaps, and two, no one calls it ‘surfing the web’ anymore, and no one ever thought the web had waves.”

“Wifi is a right, not a privilege, Steven,” Bucky said loftily. 

He stared at him. “Whoa. Is this what you do when I leave?”

“What did you think I did? Pop out of time and cease to exist until you show up to validate me?” he asked, laughing. 

Steve had an expression on his face like he’d just missed a step on the stairs. “Oh. Uh. Sort of. Jeez, that’s real shitty of me, huh?” he grimaced, brushing his hair out of his face.

“Kinda,” he shrugged, unbothered, and nudged their shoulders together playfully. “Don’t worry, I use incognito mode so you won’t get ads about my shit.”

“Uh. Thank you,” he said, looking at Bucky like he was only just realizing that he had a whole actual other person living in his house with him. He couldn’t entirely blame him—it wasn’t like Bucky left around old socks, slept, or took up a room of space for his own. In most ways that he had come to understand from TV shows and internet people complaining, he was not exhibiting typical roommate behavior. 

“Hey, now that you know and are completely alright with it, do you think you’ll watch Futurama with me? It’s weird to watch alone,” he said, and when Steve nodded, clearly still a little dazed, added, “We should order pizza from that place you like.”

Steve agreed. Bucky bared his teeth in a grin at the success of his plan. By the time the pizza delivery girl came, they were twenty minutes into an episode and he thought Steve had mostly forgotten he wasn’t human, let alone that he kept trying to steal his food. They were settled against the headboard of Steve’s bed—his bedroom being one of the rooms he’d finished enough that he got someone to move the furniture in from his storage unit—his laptop at the end of the bed. He paused the episode by tapping the spacebar with his sock-clad toe. 

“Ew, Rogers,” Bucky said, deadpan. “I touch that with my fingers.”

Steve stuck his tongue out at him and ran laughing down to bring up the pizza. When he flipped it open beside them, Bucky saw it was his usual—prosciutto, artichoke hearts, salami, and olives with white sauce—and that he had only brought up one plate, so maybe Steve had remembered that Bucky wasn’t human after all. Whatever. 

He was reaching his toe to unpause the show with a teasing smile at the man sitting next to him. Before he could remember to be wary, Bucky snatched the first piece from the pie and took a giant bite, catching strings of hot cheese on his chin in his hurry. 

“Go right ahead,” Steve said, which was suspicious, but too late. Bucky chomped down victoriously, waggling his eyebrows.

That’s when all sensation in his mouth turned to fire.

 _Oh gods,_ Bucky thought. _So hot so hot hot hot shitting motherfuck!_

He spat the bite out into his hand and waved at his tongue with the other, glaring at Steve, who had fallen against the headboard and was busting a gut laughing. “Thut up, ooo ATH-hool,” went his attempt to speak as he furiously worked to stop his mouth from stinging, to no avail. “Whaa ITH thith??”

Steve must be insane, he concluded. _This_ was his favorite pizza? Something Bucky had seen him eat while installing cabinetry and crown moldings all around the house, as if it were a routine and normal thing? Was he some kind of masochistic fire god? _Hell balls mother of actual genuine fuckass._ This was a fucking bullet to the palate. This was his tongue set on near literal fire. Bucky would never taste anything again, and he had only had the chance to really taste two things yet! 

Steve had tears in his eyes from how amusing he found Bucky’s authentic and very real pain, fuck you very much, Rogers. 

In fact—“Fuck ooo vewy muth, Wothers.”

Not as intimidating as he hoped. Steve let out another cascading hiccup of joy and took a few deep breaths, evidently to calm himself down. 

“ _Jesus_ , that was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. Poetic justice, how sweet thou art.”

Bucky stopped waving his hand at his tongue—why had that been his first instinct, anyway? It wasn’t doing anything. His tongue and palate continued to feel and taste like ash. “How the fuck do you eat that product of hellspawn regularly? I don’t think I’ll ever feel my mouth again,” he said morosely.

Steve chuckled, “I can eat it because I wait for it to cool down beforehand.”

He squinted at him. “What do you mean.”

“Bucky,” Steve said, and then paused as though realizing something. “These last two days, when you’ve been stealing my food _like an asshole_. Is this the first time you’ve ever eaten anything?”

“No, of course not,” he said, too quickly even to his own ears. 

“Oh man, you could have just asked for some like a—”

“—normal person?” he interjected with a wry smile. “I’m not even a person, Steve.”

Steve frowned. “That’s bullshit. You don’t have to be alive, or, or human, to be a person.”

He smiled. “You’re a real gem, sometimes. And _other times_ ,” he said sharply, now remembering how Steve had encouraged him to eat the pizza from Tartarus, “you’re a real shitface. You planned this!”

Caught off guard by the tonal shift in his sentence and how Bucky was now pointing a finger right in his face, he blinked. Then he grinned proudly, his cheeks pinked, like shitface was a wonderful compliment. “Yeah. It was a good trap too. Wouldn’t have sprung if you didn’t do wrong, the best kind. You were so cute, too, tryna distract me with TV like I was a toddler. Points for effort, pal, but I literally wrote that playbook in college.”

Bucky didn’t know what his face was doing, but he desperately hoped it wasn’t laying plain how much weird emotion he felt at Steve calling him ‘cute’ and ‘pal’ in that deep, condescending voice. “I can see planning around you is gonna be a challenge,” he admitted.

Steve’s eyebrows creased, “Wait—are you still gonna be trying to grab my food? Because, Barnes, you should know the two rules of war: never start a land war in Asia in the winter time, and never challenge a Rogers unless you want it to end with your ass in a dumpster behind a Waffle House.”

Bucky huffed a laugh despite himself. “Wordy rule.”

He shrugged. “I don’t make the rules. Ma does. You gonna tell my Ma that she’s wrong?”

“I see your point,” he said in a slow considering way. And he did. Sarah Rogers had been over enough that he had seen more than just the parts of her that doted and ragged on her son. Occasionally, she talked about the book club she was in, and it often sounded to Bucky as though the political machinations of power behind which book was chosen every month involved more strategic intrigue and back room deals than a _bratva_ -owned shell company. That her favored books had been ‘chosen’ unanimously by the group for five months running was evidence of a frighteningly sharp mind and an iron will.

“Still,” he sighed. “It’s important. So I gotta keep trying anyway.”

Steve frowned at him, confused and now concerned. “Ya know, I can just make you a plate up too, if it means that much to ya.”

“I’m not doing this to _eat_ ,” Bucky said, aghast and incredulous. “Domovye don’t _eat_. We take offerings.”

Steve looked at him sharply, and he realized what he’d just revealed. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“Domovye, huh? So that’s what you are? I’ve never heard of it, but I guess there’s lotsa things I haven’t heard of that are real. I knew I should have listened to Wanda, but I was just so sure you were a ghost, what with how much you look like James Barnes,” he said, casually, as though he had just learned that Bucky was lactose intolerant. Steve’s level equanimity amazed him.

He ran a tired hand over his face and spent a minute rubbing his mouth, trying to think of what to say. He’d never had to explain who—what—he was, before. “I…guess there’s no harm in ya knowin’. I’ve kinda liked pretending to be a ghost, honestly, but. I’m a domovoi. That’s the singular form,” he clarified when he saw Steve open his mouth to ask. “Domovye is plural. It’s Russian. I’m Russian too, if I’m anything, though I sure do love English. So many dirty words and messy verbs. Uh. The folk used to call me their house spirit. Some of ‘em thought I was the spirit of their ancestor, so they’d call me grandfather too. It’s actually really insulting to directly say ‘domovoi’ when referring to a domovoi, but. I been breaking so many rules for so long that I guess I don’t care about stuff like that no more. You…probably have some questions,” he said, resigned. “You should just know I don’t always got all the answers.”

He turned then, to let Steve have his say, and started a little at how close they were on the bed, with the pizza on his other side and the laptop at the end of it. He had only just started getting used to body heat, but now—the whole room was warmer because of them, he could tell. But the place where Steve’s knee, folded as it was, rested on his outer thigh—it felt burning hot, like a live coal. His fingers were tapping thoughtfully on his knees, and when Bucky looked up, Steve’s eyes caught his, the soft blue of a well-dyed wool sweater. 

Steve took a minute to speak, clearly considering his options in a way Bucky couldn’t help but respect. When he did, it was slow but steady, as though he was sure of the questions but not of how to ask them. “You mentioned breaking rules. Who made the rules? Are you going to be…in any kind of, trouble from someone? For breaking them?”

Bucky let out a dry laugh. “‘Course you’d choose the hardest question first.”

Steve shrugged, mouth tilted wryly and hands lifted, as if to say _Well, yeah_.

“I can’t say who made them. Not—” he said, since he knew Steve and he had a suddenly mutinous look on his face, “—because of a rule. Because I don’t know. They’re just, who I am. Or was,” he grimaced. 

“Domovye are what we do. And we always do certain things, almost without fail. There are rules that dictate how we gain energy, what we can do with that energy, who we expend it for, where we can go—actually. Rule is probably the wrong word. Instinct is better, but not quite right. A bird knows its limits and needs and drives by instinct and follows them with no question, because it feels right to do, and because it wouldn’t survive long as a bird without them. They’re there for a reason, those instincts, but of course the bluejays we have outside our kitchen window don’t know those reasons any better than I know why I need offerings or can’t allow my family to see me. Ehh…” he trailed off, trying to remember if there were other questions.

“Are you gonna be in trouble?” Steve supplied helpfully.

“Right. Ah. So. I don’t know. I only made the decision to break them after I did it once on accident and nothing bad happened. And I figured, my family abandoned me, I don’t have a hearth anymore, so, ya know, what the hell. Why not have some fun, try some new things, if there’s no point to the old way anymore. It was getting pretty boring.”

Steve looked at him sharply, hand jerking like he meant to reach out and held himself back. “What do you mean, your family abandoned you? You didn’t stay with the house on purpose?”

He didn’t know why he hadn’t expected Steve to ask all the hardest damn questions first, but in retrospect, he really should have. Steve never pulled any kinda punches. 

He gave a humorless chuckle and shook his head, “That’s definitely more of a ghost thing, I think. Nah, domovye move with the family, usually. I moved with the Barnes—the Barinovs, then—all the way from Russia. They have to take a coal with them to the new digs, warm the place up, invite me to move in with ‘em. And, so, ah. Um, ya know, this time, it was just the kids left. And, sure, they know I’m real but, they ain’t too fond of me so. So,” he had to clear his throat a couple times, and his voice was going a little hoarse. 

This time Steve did reach out, and grip his shoulder comfortingly. Bucky sent him the pale imitation of a grateful smile. “So. They didn’t take no hearth coal with them when they left, and they didn’t invite me with ‘em to the new place.”

Steve’s eyebrows were furrowed, and he was biting his lip as though not sure which emotion was appropriate to express. He just gripped his shoulder harder and let him compose himself for a few minutes. Bucky had seen very few humans who knew how to sit silently with another person’s loss. He was overwhelmed, suddenly, at how lucky he had been that Steve Rogers was the one who bought his crooked little house and not someone else. How lucky he was to know Steve, to get to throw away his bindings and talk with him like this. 

He clapped a hand over the one Steve had on his shoulder and squeezed it in thanks, before smiling at him to let him know it was okay to move on. Steve let his hand slide off slowly, though he patted his knee before fully retreating into his own space. 

“Well. You’re welcome to stay here with me as long as you want to. I mean. This place was yours first.”

Bucky laughed. “It doesn’t really work that way, but. That’s real kind of ya, Rogers. I think I’ll be takin’ ya up on that. You may grow to regret it, but I ain’t goin’ anywhere soon.”

Steve leaned into his shoulder, wearing a cocksure grin that made him ten times more handsome. “Regret is for cowards, Barnes. …Wait. Your name isn’t really James Barnes, is it?”

“Oh,” Bucky said, still focusing a little too much on the shape of Steve’s cheekbones under that grin, “No. I don’t know how other domovye do names, but for the past few centuries I’ve been choosing mine based on the best person in the family every generation or so. It feels kinda nice, like a tribute, after they pass. James was the last really phenomenal one we—the Barnes—had, and he was at his best with his sisters, who just called him Bucky. I stuck with it.”

“Huh,” Steve said. “You’re keeping the name, right? You don’t gotta. You could be whoever you want, now.”

Bucky leaned back, hands folded behind his head. “Hmmmm. I can. I dunno. I might keep it. It’s kinda growing on me.”

They came to another accord—which was a very fancy name for the aftermath of the two of them essentially glaring at each other and stubbornly wrestling over a forkful of hamburger helper until the casserole ended up splattered on the wall and Bucky stabbed himself with the tines of the fork on accident. (That was not an experience he was keen to repeat, but the full-bellied laughter Steve let out when he dropped the fork with a yelp was a precious sight.) 

“I still don’t know why this is important to you—you said something about offerings?—but it feels weird for you to keep trying to steal my first bite instead of having your own plate, or even just, wild concept, _asking_ first,” Steve had said while grumpily wrapping an ice pack around his bruised hand.

Bucky was doing his best not to visibly react to Steve’s slightly cold fingers taking care of him with firm, gentle pressure, but he felt the hairs on his arms and neck raise despite himself. “If I ask you, it defeats the purpose,” he muttered weakly, even though the purpose was pretty moot since he’d get no energy from it anyway, and he knew it. He didn’t know why he was still doing this, really, other than the fact that it was fun to rile Steve up. Maybe some part of him felt like he needed Steve to know how to take care of him, but that thought was embarrassing enough that he sent it summarily out into the cold to wither and die. 

Steve paused in his efforts to give him a sardonic, knowing look. He relented, “Yeah, alright. I’ll stop.”

“Hey,” he said, looking sober. His hands had stalled around Bucky’s, and even though there was an ice pack and a towel blocking the sensation, the sight of it made something inside him flutter. “No. That’s not what I was tryna say, Buck. I just mean—can’t I make you up a plate too? You like it, don’t ya, the food?”

Bucky thought about it. “It’s—it’s like discovering a whole new set o’ ears, or somethin’. I don’t have any…context for tasting food. You humans, you eat three times a day from the day you’re born, you’re bursting with context, ya know? I’ve seen you eat that cinnamon toast nearly every morning and it never seemed like it impressed you too much. But, Steve…I could feel the hands that kneaded the dough, the wind when—I…yeah. Yeah, I like it. But I can’t eat a whole plate, that’s. Just way too much. And it’s, ah. Fuck this sounds too weird. Never mind.”

Steve, who as he was talking had started to smile fondly, raised his eyebrows jokingly. “Oh, you didn’t say the weird part already?”

He pulled his hand from between Steve’s and shoved at his shoulder playfully. “Shaddup. I’ve never been in the material plane this much, okay, bodies are a trip. I don’t really have sensation, over There, it’s more like a catalog of knowings and energies.”

“‘Bodies are a trip’,” Steve quoted to the air, gesturing to Bucky as though he were showing him off to an audience, all _Ladies and gentle folk, my very odd domovoi, for your viewing pleasure._

“Okay, y’know what, Rogers? This body’s takin’ a trip outta the room, I don’t have to deal with your shit,” he said, and got to the door before Steve caught him by the arm, chuckling.

“No, no, don’t leave, I’m sorry. I’m only makin’ fun of ya a little. It’s just how I deal with all the crazy world-shattering stuff ya keep dumping on me. I’m not always so good at dealing with it right away.”

Reluctantly charmed by the relative vulnerability Steve was showing, he paused and nodded to show him he wouldn’t keep trying to leave. Steve kept his hand where it was for a long few seconds, rubbing at the muscle at his shoulder and giving it a squeeze in a move that Bucky could only assume was meant to soothe him further. Oddly, it lit a little fire inside him instead. He let out a considering noise at the sensation.

Steve dropped his arm as though waking suddenly from a deep sleep and coughed to clear his throat. “Right,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Um. So, you don’t want your own plate. What if I just make a little bit more food and give you some o’ mine? Be hell of a lot less annoying than the stealing and the running off.”

An electric thrill ran through Bucky at the offer and he sucked in a startled breath. It had almost felt the same as a real offering, that pulse of energy. It didn’t last, but _damn_. “Yeah!” he said with embarrassing eagerness. “Yeah, let’s do that.” 

_And thus, was the Second Accord struck_ , Bucky thought to himself dramatically, and on impulse, held out his bare uninjured hand to Steve. “Shake on it,” he explained, when his friend just stared at it.

“Oh,” he quirked a half smile, looking flustered. “Ha ha. Right.”

Bucky wiggled his fingers encouragingly, still holding his hand out. Steve snorted at himself and grabbed the offered hand in a strong, firm two-pumps-and-release movement. By his side, his hand flexed outwards as if to shake away an ache.

The next day, they had shepherd’s pie. Bucky thought it tasted like cold hands warming by the fire and hay, freshly cut.

### [[AN INTERLUDE]]

There was a gray van down the block from a house that had seen better days fifty years ago. The side of the van was labeled, in professional block lettering, ’Mosche Plumbing’ and below it in red script, ‘We work for you!’

The two men inside were waiting for their targets to fall solidly asleep before phase two of the plan could begin. 

(They would not realize until far, far too late that one of their targets had never once personally met even one minute of sleep.)

“Have you got the tools?” asked the bald one, British, irritable.

“I have got the tools!” said the other, American, in a cheerfully dramatic voice. “Do you think they’re sleeping deeply, the sleep of logs and babies everywhere, or shall we wait a little longer?”

The British man pulled a black mask over his face and gestured for his partner to do the same. “I think we’ve waited quite long enough. I’m keen to get the art and go.”

“Peachy keen, huh, ‘Mosche’?” he chortled, in the same way a father does after delivering a joke no one else finds funny. 

“No names. You know the rules, _Edmund_.”

‘Edmund’ grumbled, humor stymied for the moment, and followed his partner out of the van with a black duffel bag, after they’d coasted in neutral with the van lights off to a spot right in front of the house. 

“I would just like to reregister my hinky feeling. I don’t like them being in the house for this, M—ah. My friend.”

The waning moon reflected in the brief white flash of the man’s smile. “Oh, I’ve taken note of that. But…” he said, leading, and gestured smugly to the other man.

From the slump of his shoulders, it was clear who had won this argument before. “They never leave for the night. I know. It’s being moved soon. Let’s just get this over with.”

“My thoughts precisely.”

They moved as one unit up the porch steps, one kneeling to unzip the duffel and pass his partner a series of oddly shaped tools. In a matter of less than a minute, the door creaked open and they padded with their sock-wrapped shoes up the stairs to the second floor. Their weeks of surveillance had proved fruitful, so they passed the first room and entered the second, to find it full of brown paper-wrapped canvases and a few ceramic and metal sculptures that were stunning even in the weak light of the streetlights streaming through the window. 

“Bingo,” whispered the American, to the clear annoyance of ‘Mosche’. He turned as if to snap something and then started, grabbing Edmund’s bicep to turn him.

“What the hell is that?” Mosche said in a hoarse whisper, less like he was trying to stay quiet, and more as if he couldn’t make himself speak any louder.

Edmund turned and his first instinct was to freeze. There, in the doorway, hovering about three feet above the floor, glowed two burning embers set bare inches apart. They were almost like eyes, if eyes could flicker and snap in a slow rotation of colors, deep dim dark red, hot orange, brief flashes of icy blue. Now that they were both aware of the—creature, they realized the subvocal vibration that they had taken to be the motor of the air conditioner was a low, continuous growl. 

“Ned. Do not. Move,” said Mosche.

Edmund—Ned—shifted his weight slightly from one foot to the other and licked his lips nervously. It was, apparently, too much movement for the creature in the doorway. 

All the lights in the house flicked on in one simultaneous flash that blinded them momentarily. They blinked furiously to clear the black spots from their vision, and Ned shrieked, seeing what confronted them. “Dear Jehovah’s Witness, that is a wolf!”

Mosche recovered next and was clearly expecting Ned to have exaggerated the size of a small dog, because his face went pale and he became, if possible, even stiller. “Bollocks,” he spat, and brandished his crowbar.

The wolf at the door was pitch black—clearly to help it blend into the darkness with complete ease—and half the size of an adult man. His snout was wrinkled back, that growl rising in volume, his teeth bared. They were frost white, knife sharp, measured in multiples of inches. He placed one giant claw an inch closer to them, shifting into a crouch with his powerful haunches as though a second from pouncing, and Ned, to his embarrassment, whimpered. 

“Bucky?” came a muffled, sleepy question in the deep voice of their first target, Steve Rogers. He was clearly just waking up and could spot them at any moment.

Mosche swore again.

They all heard the doorknob to the first bedroom begin to turn, and the wolf lost its snarl, turning towards the sound, ears pricking up in seeming eagerness. Mosche took the opportunity to fiddle with the window to unlock it, so he only saw it in the corner of his eye: before the first bedroom door creaked open more than an inch, the wolf grew tall and light-skinned and human-shaped. He joined Ned in gaping for only one (utterly unforgivable) second, because he was a goddamned professional and this was still a job. Just because it had gone tits up didn’t mean he had to do The Work poorly. 

The work, currently, was getting this fucking window open enough to slip out before—

“Buddy, that window’s been painted shut. We hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Lucky break, I guess, huh, Buck?” said the short blond-haired man who had just entered.

The hellwolf-turned-man, whose name was apparently ‘Buck’ ( _ironic_ , thought Ned with an ounce of his usual bravado), did not take his eyes off of Ned and Mosche to reply. “These men,” he said in a slow and frighteningly deliberate tempo, “are very, very unlucky. They have chosen very, very poorly. They will regret it for many, many years.”

With each repetition, the room around them darkened a little more at the edges, the air pressing on their chests so much as to make it difficult to breathe, and second by second they became more certain that they were at the bottom of an extremely deep cave out of which there was no escape. Mosche kept swallowing back spit, mouth sour with fear, trying not to throw up, and grabbed for his partner, who was hyperventilating a little now. 

“Come on, you bloody idiot,” he said, and pulled him bodily between the two men blocking the door, heading for the stairs. It was getting quite hard to see, despite the lights, since the edges of his vision had gone a sparkly black. Or maybe that was real? Ned’s arm slipped from Mosche’s as he stopped to stare at the man behind them. 

“What is he?” he whispered, as though to himself. 

The man—Buck—was stalking towards them, his hands open and filled with fire, his mouth wide and sharp with teeth. But before him there came more terrifying things, twisting shadows and writhing coal black monsters and sharp things with red eyes rushing to devour them. “Ned, _run!_ ” Mosche yelled, and then sprinted away, leaving his partner behind.

Ned stumbled backwards into the stair railing and nearly toppled to his death before using the wall to pinball down the stairs as if he were drunk. He kept looking back at the man and his beasts, as though mesmerized. Behind him at the top of the stairs, haloed in the light, Steve watched him make his faltering way down and out the open door. 

The creature did not stop at the threshold. Neither did his horrible retinue of demons. For some reason, Ned had expected to be safe on the lawn, so his heartbeat rabbited again and he jolted forward a few more feet—the van. Where was the van?

He staggered to a halt in the middle of the street, where they had left the van idling, ready for the getaway. It was not there. “I am not a fan of this situation, I want that known,” he yelled to the air.

He spun when he heard—yes, wheels, blessed holy salvation on wheels. Mosche had looped the van around for him, back doors swinging wildly, almost knocking him out when he leapt in and to safety. The van stalled briefly, fishtailing, and from the floor of his new sanctuary, he saw the creature standing at the edge where the grass met the sidewalk, his black and red beasts swirling angrily like smoke against a glass wall.

They spun around a street sign and Ned closed the back doors. He laid on his back and just breathed. 

“You alive back there?” called Mosche, who seemed to be genuinely asking.

Ned considered it. “I think I must be on drugs,” he concluded, quite reasonably. 

###### [[END INTERLUDE]]

Back at the house, Bucky turned from the retreating van and released his magic, letting the shadows and the fire fade and the teeth dull. It rushed out of him with the rest of his energy, and he tripped a bit on his way up the porch steps, leaning against the door after he locked it. 

_Gods, I’m wiped_ , he thought, vaguely embarrassed. He hadn’t even _done_ anything, just put on a nice little show, and look at him now. Weak, sweaty, knees trembling. Every part of him shook with released tension. Bucky opened his eyes to find Steve—fuck, _Steve had seen all that_ —staring at him with an indecipherable look on his face. 

“Why did you do all that?” he asked. 

Bucky gaped at him. “Why? What do you mean, why?”

“Yes. Why were you so angry?”

“They were _breaking in_ to our _house_ , Steve. One of them would have killed you if he had the upper hand, I could feel it in him. Why wouldn’t I be mad at them?”

“So it wasn’t just the house,” he clarified, interested. 

Bucky sucked a breath slowly in and considered it. Yes. He had been angry that ill-meaning strangers had trespassed on his house, but he was _furious_ when he saw the dangerous one sizing Steve up dismissively, as though marking a weak spot to exploit, a target to hit. All he could think, through the blur of rage and energy, was: _Don’t you hurt him, don’t you touch him, don’t you even look at him, Steve is_ mine.

Huh.

That was…new.

“Buck? Bucky?” he heard Steve call, and when he refocused, his friend was standing very close to him. It made him feel a little light-headed. He took a few deep breaths, but that didn’t help, since all it did was enfold him in the smell of Steve’s various soaps, wood stain, and graphite. 

Bucky met those eyes and he didn’t know what Steve saw on his face, but it made something spark in them. He gripped Bucky’s shoulders, slammed them against the door, and—

Bucky was not sure what this was. Well. It was a kiss. He had seen kisses before, from the outside. Steve was kissing him, eyebrows pinched in a fierce expression, mouth hard against his own, which lay slack in surprise. This was new. This was _very_ new. Steve nipped at his bottom lip.

This was _nice_.

But before Bucky could figure out how he was supposed to be responding—he knew he was, but in this moment, all the kisses he had ever seen just flew out of his mind, and his hands fluttered at his sides like indecisive birds—Steve stopped kissing him. And stepped back several feet. 

The look on his face was—not good. _Fuck_. Bucky’s hands and knees were still jelly, and every inch of him ached—even his insides ached, from the marrow in his bones to the backs of his eyes. He didn’t know how to make that kiss happen again. He didn’t even know why it had happened in the first place.

All he knew was that if he had to keep seeing Steve’s face turn to trembling stone for one more second, he was going to throw up all over the entry mat. So he about-faced, straightened his knees and tried his best to walk with dignity into the living room, where he could disappear properly. He wasn’t sure if he achieved ‘dignity’ but he managed at least not to weave drunkenly.

When he tried to cross over into his usual plane, however, he felt like fire ants were biting every inch of his skin. It was unbearable, and it did not lessen until he fell back into the physical plane to land with a huff on the couch. 

“Shitting motherfuck,” Bucky whispered, astonished and— _tired_. “I think I might need sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of a shorter chapter this time because I couldn't figure out where else to split some bits. Lemme know if any of y'all figure out who the robbers are (they don't show up again, but I couldn't help it).


	4. A Little Bump and Grind(r)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve does what any millennial faced with an emotional crisis would do: he downloads some dating apps.  
> ~  
> "Steve wasn’t sure why he was trying to hide this from Bucky at all. He had barely understood what kissing was just a few weeks ago—there was no way he’d developed enough romantic experience to be jealous, and it was getting weird to keep worrying about keeping it secret, as if Steve was cheating on him or something. Which. That was so far from being the situation that it might as well have been the punchline to a Dadaist joke."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Russian lullaby called “Pussy-cat” feels absolutely like it was written about domovye to me:  
> “Pussy, little kitty,  
> Kitty—little grey tail.  
> Come to us and stay the night,  
> To rock our little baby.  
> I will pay you, cat,  
> For your job—  
> I will give you a piece of cake  
> And a jug of milk.”
> 
> This was one of my favorite chapters to write. -dances about magical realism- Also, it gets progressively hornier from here, folks (...for a given value of horny).

Emmanuel: **heya cutie**

Fabian: **Hey sexyy ;)**

silverfoxxy46043: **Top or bottom??**

Kento: **Hunnyyyyy you are giving me LIPS**

picnotincluded6369: **hey there**

Nemo: **Howdy-ho**

Steve stared down at the notifications on his phone as they flashed with a mounting feeling he couldn't quite place, for so long that the lock screen went dark again. 

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Bucky asked, and Steve’s heart (and phone) flipped as he scrambled to keep him from seeing the screen.

This moment, here, was exactly why he’d downloaded this small bevy of dating apps. Ever since people had tried to break in, and Bucky had stopped them with that protective rage in his eyes, and then had turned to him and Steve just—couldn’t help himself anymore. He pinned those big shoulders against the wall and _kissed him_ , fierce and grateful _._ When he pulled back a few seconds later,Bucky had just stared at him, eyes wide, body shaking in exhaustion, before stalking off in what Steve could only describe as a murder strut—

Well. 

Ever since then, it had been. _Difficult._ Difficult, was the word. To keep his usual number of intrusive thoughts of his domovoi housemate’s looks to a manageable amount—to keep even his regular interactions with him firmly on the platonic spectrum.

It wasn’t really…Bucky was great. 

But he was _not_ human. That much had been made clear that night, as clear as it had also been made quite how far in over his head Steve had let himself get. Sure, a territorial human might defend his home with equal ferocity, but a territorial human would use a bat, maybe a rifle. Not shadows of the intruders’ own fears and hands filled with flame, teeth sharp and bared in threat. 

Steve didn’t really know why that monstrous show of power didn’t scare him the way it ought to have. He was more bothered that Bucky hadn’t stopped trying to hurt the men who had tried to break in until they had finally stumbled over the land boundary line to peel away in their van. He was more bothered that Bucky had so tired himself out in the process that he wasn’t able to leave the couch for days. 

He was more bothered that Bucky had walked away without kissing him back.

And that—that right there, was where he realized Nat and Sam were, as usual, right. He was spending too much time at home, still trying to finish projects, getting to know Bucky and diving too far in too fast, like he always did. They weren’t even the same _species_. Before him, Bucky hadn’t talked to almost anyone else for centuries, and that still didn’t seem to bother him. He obviously had a different idea of morality and physicality—Steve wasn’t actually sure Bucky could feel attraction or affection in the same way a human might. He felt kind of bad having that thought, like his brain was instinctually shying away from qualifying anyone as ‘less than human’. 

Bucky wasn’t less than human, though. (He might be more.) 

But the facts remained: 

  1. Steve had been spending too much time at home, 
  2. developing romantic and sexual feelings towards a creature who had 
  3. dubious ability or desire to return those feelings, while 
  4. his friends who knew him best were urging him to expand his circle, focus outwards, to meet those needs. 



So he did what any other millennial would in his situation: he downloaded all the dating apps that he’d heard of and spent way too much time making a profile for each one. (He’d had to ask for good pictures from Nat, Sam, and Wanda, because the only selfies he had were the ridiculous frowning ones he sent to Ma. Not exactly the tone he was going for. He was sure his Ma had some good ones of him, too, but he didn’t really want her to know he was trying to date non-Bucky people just yet, since he knew she would wonder why. There was really no reason that he could translate into a real modern human world reason. He’d wait till he found a good guy before telling her, he thought.)

He had forgotten, in the year since he’d last deleted these off his phone, what a numbers game it was. Just how many shitty guys he needed to wade through to find one worth trying a date with, only to get to the date and realize they were expecting Steve to act entirely differently. Usually because of his stature—look, he’d gotten over (most) of his hang-ups about his physical appearance. He didn’t have much choice, since he stopped getting taller at age 15 and his meds made ‘bulking up’ impossible. The one thing he still had genuine trouble with was—

Jordan: **Honestly your the hottest twink on here**

leatherdaddie34721: **unf baby baby boy**

masc4masc: **i dont usually like twinks but…**

Yeah. That. 

The whole…twink thing. Was hard to avoid, and harder not to get mad about. It could get real awkward if the other guy was insistent. Made Steve want to punch things, and he did his best to keep those feelings as far away from romantic relationships as possible. He had better luck with women about it, since they didn’t really have categories like that, but he was, ah, currently trying to sublimate some very _specific_ desires. 

Desires that were inspired by moments like this, he thought wryly, as Bucky (bored with Steve’s flustered non-answers) practiced a dance routine he’d seen a girl do on YouTube, headphones plugged into the old iPod Steve gave him last month. He only had a tank top on, and despite the A/C, his skin was already highlighted with a sheen of sweat. Steve had no idea why a house spirit would need muscles _that_ defined, but damn if he hadn’t found a whole new guilty pleasure to tuck away in his mental box labeled ‘Bucky’ and carefully tape shut. He couldn’t remember ever being this close to biceps that nice. He couldn’t tell what genre of dance Bucky was doing, but it was equal odds that Steve would have known if he could stop hyper-focusing on how it emphasized parts of his body. The way his thighs flexed when he popped his hips was giving Steve some _very specific ideas_.

He turned to where Steve sat on the couch and caught him staring. Steve felt his face heat up, probably turning an ugly tomato red, fuck his complexion, honestly. Bucky didn’t look weirded out—though, he reminded himself, he’d have no context within which to think Steve was being weird—rather, a big smile crinkled his eyes and he turned his dance toward Steve. His movements gained a new edge of performative drama, like he was enjoying having an audience. 

_Ohgodohshitohdamnjesusmaryandjosephfuckittohellandback,_ went Steve’s brain.

This was worse than being serenaded. What the fuck was he supposed to do with his face? Was he supposed to stare into Bucky’s eyes?? Weren’t those ab rolls ruled illegal in all fifty states? Where did he put his hands, was it sketchy that they were in his lap, should he move them? How was Bucky doing that thing with his arms? This was so awkward. Why was it _working_? Fuck. How could Bucky do this to him????

At some point Bucky seemed to read the discomfort on his face, but instead of stopping like a gentleman, an ominous look of delight stole into his eyes. He wasn’t following the routine anymore, Steve didn’t think, because his headphones were out now and there was no way YouTube wouldn’t have banned the video if that girl was doing what Bucky was doing now— _Jesus Christ_ , he was seeing that ass in a whole new light. Steve clenched his hands and felt that damnable flush spread down his neck. He squeezed his eyes shut hard enough that when he opened them again, it took a few seconds for the black spots to fully clear from his vision. 

Bucky was right in front of him now. He jumped in shock, and frowned when he saw Bucky failing to hide a snicker as he swayed his hips in those ridiculous jeans, just a foot from his face. He waggled his eyebrows ridiculously.

 _Oh, this is fun and games to you, is it, Barnes? We’ll fuckin’ see about that,_ Steve thought.

So Bucky wanted to play Gay Chicken, did he? He had no idea who he was dealing with. Steve had started his elementary school’s GSA branch. He had helped organize a rally for trans rights at City Hall in eighth grade. Steve’s first tattoo was an obscure Oscar Wilde quote. He had sex with the entire men’s and women’s rugby teams at Brooklyn Art College. Steve punched Nazis for breakfast. Steve Rogers was an _Advanced_ Gay. 

He grabbed Bucky by the loops of those too-tight jeans and jerked him forward and down towards his lap, all caution and embarrassment abandoned in favor of the startled huff his domovoi let out, in favor of those stormy blue eyes widening—in favor of being the one in control of this nonsense again. Far from gaining Steve’s former hesitance, Bucky let his knees rest next to Steve’s hips on the couch and used them to prop himself up, so he still had the advantage of height. He draped his arms over Steve’s shoulders, comfortable and calm.

“Need somethin’, Stevie?” he smirked.

Steve raised an eyebrow. _Challenge accepted_.

“Sure,” he said, chin lifted in the cocksure way that usually got it punched. “Need ya to stay still for me.”

Bucky’s mouth went all pouty. Steve honestly couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose, but it still drove him crazy. “That’s no fun,” Bucky said, and, as though already trying to avoid the idea, he slid backwards a bit, readjusting his knees wider. 

In this new position, Steve could feel Bucky’s hands—somehow they had callouses, shit—now at the back of his neck, the heat and threat of his weight just above his thighs. 

“You’re a fuckin’ menace, Barnes,” he sighed, unable to take his eyes off the shape of his lips, despite his instinctive desire to tease Bucky further. 

It was only because he was paying such close attention to those lips that he caught the way Bucky’s breath punched out, the way they trembled open, then he licked them—Steve would have noticed that from a mile away—before he closed his mouth and swallowed. Like he’d reached a decision. 

“You should kiss me again,” he said in a whisper, as all his previous flirty confidence apparently fled him. 

Steve couldn’t move. _Fuck_. This was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid by putting energy towards those shitty dating apps. He couldn’t keep doing this—he needed that self control that he was so famed for back in school. Bucky ducked his head to meet his gaze, eyes going between meeting his and flickering to his mouth, as if he wanted to stare him down but couldn’t entirely keep himself from a few hopeful glances.

“Please,” he rasped.

At that one single word, Steve let himself bend. God, how could he keep a man like this waiting? 

When their lips met for only the second time, Bucky let out a great, heaving, shuddering sigh, as though he had been waiting for this kiss for centuries, and his weight sunk immediately into Steve’s lap. Steve couldn’t stop himself from smiling into it, and felt Bucky’s hand tracing around their mouths like a curious moth, there and gone again.

It made Steve break contact, just briefly, stringing the kiss into small brief pecks, hoping to see the expression on his face and understand him a little better—after all, it went nowhere near this well the last time Steve had tried kissing him. Bucky’s eyes were closed, head bowed to touch his forehead to Steve’s. There was a divot between his eyebrows like he was in pain or concentrating on a difficult problem, his mouth a little pursed between each peck—as if he thought he might need to keep it a certain shape for it all to work. 

It was only in this moment that Steve realized something both incredibly obvious and absolutely revelatory: this was just Bucky’s second kiss ever. 

_Of course it was! He’s only talked to like five humans in the whole of his existence,_ Steve thought, feeling stupid.

He’d even heard Bucky mentioning that he remembered hearing about other domovye, over a hundred years ago back in Russia, but by nature of being, well, _domovye_ , never met them. He felt a swell of tenderness rush through him at the realization that all of this was entirely new to Bucky—he was concerned about doing it right, maybe. Steve’s first kiss had been one of those terrible playground dares, but for the ones after that, he didn’t stop being nervous about doing it wrong till he’d had a few long term relationships. 

Steve brushed his fingers along Bucky’s smooth jaw and up to smooth that concerned crease between his eyebrows, and pressed a happy, silly kiss on one of his eyes to get them to open. “Hey,” he said softly. 

Bucky blinked slow as syrup, as if he was reluctantly waking from a dream. “What’s wrong?” he asked, the crease returning briefly.

“Nothing, Buck. Just, I know this is a lot of new stuff for you. You’re sexy as hell, you know that? Ya don’t have to do it all perfect. I’m just happy to be kissin’ on ya.”

Pausing to talk was worth it for the red tint that stole across Bucky’s cheeks—he was pretty sure this was the first time he’d seen him blush. It was sweet. 

_God, Rogers, you’re in trouble._

His hands twisted together behind Steve’s neck, some kind of nervous habit he probably wasn’t yet aware of picking up. “I know that,” he said in a mildly defensive tone. He ducked his head shyly, before admitting in a low, reluctant grumble, “I’m…happy, too.”

That was more than enough for Steve, who caught Bucky’s bottom lip between his teeth and used the gasp it triggered to lick lightly inside and along the seam of his mouth. At first, he froze, and Steve had a horrible flashback to the sight of his back as he walked away from their first kiss. Those worries were swiftly put to bed when he heard him let out a brief groan, his hands twitching. Bucky seized the sides of his face and dove into the kiss with so little abandon that Steve was grateful for the tight grip of those fingers along his jaw and neck for the way they kept him anchored. 

Living in this crooked little house with Bucky, it often felt like they existed in their own magical bubble, secret and safe from every person who drove or walked past on their way about their lives. Occasionally it seemed that time worked differently in here. Steve didn’t know if that was just the psychological effect of being around someone you wanted to know inside and out, backwards and forwards and in rear wheel drive, or if it was the consequence of real magic. 

But here, now, in this living room he had nearly finished and on this couch he made years ago, saddled with the delicious weight of Bucky’s strong thighs and pressed against each other like dried flowers between pages—here, surrounded as they were with each other, now, trading breath for breath, time abandoned them. Steve could feel Bucky’s pulse against his thumb as it rested in the hollow of his collarbone—it didn’t slow, or stop, as much as become the only relevant marker of chronological movement. They exchanged minutes for heartbeats, hours for breaths, days for the gentle slide of their lips. 

When Steve turned his head a little down, breaking the kiss just to rest his forehead against Bucky’s, he felt the shaky sigh against his cheek echo in his chest. 

“Is…” Bucky said, and then hesitated as the word hung in the air like a frozen raindrop, barely audible. “Is this normal? Does this happen every time you kiss someone?”

As long as he could feel Bucky’s heartbeat, Steve could stay in this peaceful stillness without panicking. Still, he huffed a laugh. It landed on the ground with the sound of a leaflet dropping. He glanced at the old grandfather clock he’d wound only yesterday afternoon in order to confirm what his body was telling him. It was not ticking. “No. This is new. Pretty sure it’s a you thing. You’re the resident magic man here.”

“Uhh,” Bucky croaked, and looked around at the lamps, which were somehow still clearly lit but emitting no light—like the pools of shade and brightness streaming from them were just colors in a painting. Steve wasn’t sure how he could be seeing every handsome line of his friend’s face when it was becoming evident that they were outside the speed of light. 

“I dunno what the fuck this is, uh. Sorry for stopping…time,” he said. His mouth twisted wryly when Steve waited for each word to settle to the floor before responding.

He raised his eyebrows, amused, thumb running soothing circles across the pulse of life in Bucky’s throat that kept him grounded in the moment. “Don’t need to be sorry. Hell of a compliment, knowin’ my guy is so swept off his feet that he wants to, hah, ‘stop the world and melt with you’.”

It was getting easier to ignore the after-sounds their voices made when they left their lips. Well, no, it was so novel as to be impossible to ignore. But it was getting easier not to focus on it. Especially, apparently, after hearing Steve say something like _that_. Bucky grinned. “Your guy, huh?”

 _Ugh, fucking Freud and his fucking slips,_ he thought and swallowed nervously. Wasn’t he supposed to be trying to move on this week? He hadn’t even responded to one person’s message before jumping right to making out with his decidedly nonhuman roommate, who had now reacted by _literally pausing time._

 _Hell. Why was Steve so bad at this?_

“Well. Ya know. It’s, uh, it’s just an expression. People use sometimes,” he stammered, waving his hand around in a failed attempt at casualness.

_JESUS HORATIO CHRIST, STEVEN._

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes in exasperation, in the process removing his hand from where it had laid against that heartbeat. He only saw a second of Bucky’s face falling in disappointment before Steve was blinded and deafened. There was, in that next moment, a fiercely bright flash of light and a cacophony of noise from the floor next to the couch. It was nearly impossible to process any of the layers into recognizable sounds, but he _could_ recognize the timbre of his own and Bucky’s voice, just barely, under what could only be the clock taking back its place in time with one tremendously loud TOCK. 

“I guess that solves that problem,” Bucky said with what felt to Steve like nearly identical abruptness to time reengaging. 

He levered himself off the couch to look at the clock on the wall across the room, which had resumed its regular quiet metronome. Steve’s hands—his face—his thighs—all of him felt cold at Bucky’s absence. Bucky was darting looks at him every now and again…was he nervous? Hopeful? Angry? Steve couldn’t tell, and it was like whiplash, not knowing and not touching, after sharing that small eternity of togetherness. 

After another minute (Steve had counted the ticks of the clock as he stared at the back of Bucky’s head, willing him to meet his eyes, willing himself to say something, say anything…), he left the room to clomp loudly up the stairs. Some small mean part of him was relieved at the distance Bucky had created, even if it was because Steve had trampled all over his feelings in his carelessness. It had just been made very clear that Steve’s legendary self-control simply did not exist when it came to Bucky Barnes. If he was going to move on to pursuing some kind of healthy (human) relationship, he couldn’t count on his own willpower to enforce boundaries between them.

Space was, he could admit in the privacy of his own mind, the very last thing he wanted from Bucky. But what Steve wanted was foolish and unusual and _wonderful—_ and so, so, so not going to happen, he reminded himself.

Being a mature adult _sucked._

His phone buzzed. He glanced down, saw another Tinder notification, and rolled his eyes when he opened it. 

Josh: **hi there**

Ugh. Might as well get to work right away.

It took a few days before the frost that bit the air whenever Steve was in a room with Bucky began to thaw enough for them to speak normally. 

“I don’t think I _can_ stop time like that, though,” was the first thing he said to Steve when he entered the kitchen with measuring tape in hand and a pencil tucked behind his ear, intending to find a place for the food pantry shelves to go.

The air wasn’t warm by any means, but Steve couldn’t see his breath fogging the air in front of him and the nearest window wasn’t rimed with frost, so Bucky must be feeling more charitably towards him. He took a chance on acting semi-normal.

“Hello, Barnes, nice to see you. Day’s been goin’ good, thanks for asking,” he said, smiling, unable to stifle the leap of joy his heart did at having Bucky meet his gaze for the first time all week.

Bucky huffed impatiently. “Sure, sure. Glad ta hear it. Back to the actual important topic: I don’t think I can stop time like that.”

He bit his lip, confused. “Uh. I know it was a surprise to both of us, but. Buck. There’s no one else that coulda done it. We were the only ones in the house, and you’re the one with the mojo.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t you?” he asked quickly, and Steve could tell that this was something he’d been ruminating on for the whole length of time when he wasn’t talking to him.

“Yeah, I’m real sure. I’m human. If humans could pause time, we’d be doing it constantly. I’d know. Hell, there’d be memes about it,” he said. Today Bucky was wearing corduroys and a very cozy looking navy blue cable knit sweater. Steve wanted to bury his face in his chest and just rest there. 

Maybe he needed a nap. And/or a cold shower. 

“I’ve been thinking about that. There’s another option, ya know,” Bucky said, and leaned against the side of the fridge with his arms crossed.

“Oh?” 

“You sure you’re human?” he asked searchingly, and Steve’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“Yes! What the shit, Bucky? Why would you even ask that?” he exclaimed, doing his best not to take it as an insult. He knew it wasn’t meant to be rude, but jeez. Fella could take a thing like that personally.

Bucky had his hand held out, eyebrows creased concernedly. “It’s not—I really wanna know. Do you have any old family stories, old legends or tales about your ancestors, ya know, things you never took as fact because they were told like children’s stories?”

“Why the hell would that mean I wasn’t _human?_ And anyway, I’ve never done anything weird or magical. Just ask Wanda. She’s comin’ around on Thursday,” he finished. 

Bucky sighed exasperatedly. “Pal, you oughtta know by now from knowing me, that some stories ain’t _just_ stories. I’m not coming outta nowhere with this. I’ve seen you push through obstacles like absolutely no human I’ve ever seen, and I seen a lot. My money’s on some kinda river spirit somewhere back a few generations—they’re not too strong but they got persistence coming out their ears. That’s you all over.”

Steve couldn’t speak for a few seconds, and after that, he didn’t speak, trying to reframe all this in his head. The only reason he’d had the opportunity to know and talk to Bucky in the first place was because he refused to be narrow-minded about anything if he could help it (and he usually could). Bucky looked at him earnestly as he took his time processing, and Steve appreciated that he wasn’t adding to the load. 

“I’m…I still don’t get how you’re so sure this wasn’t you, Buck. It’s kind of a stretch to jump to wondering if my great-grandma was a river spirit just because you haven’t done this kind of magic before,” he said, and saw Bucky open his mouth to interject. He raised a hand. “But. I’ll think about it, okay? If it means that much to ya.”

Bucky smiled at him, dimples on full display, and the kitchen was almost as warm as it’d ever been.

Curtis: **hey**

Steve: **Hi, how’s life?**

Curtis: **not much, catching up on some reading and hanging with my amazing precious beautiful doggo**

Over the years that he had used online dating—going back to a brief period of time in his teens before phone apps, when there were just web forums on geocities and the like—Steve had learned well how absolutely vital it was to lower your standards to get any opportunity to date at all. 

Things that usually put him off of dating someone when he met them in real life—having no personality, a terrible sense of humor, a clear obsession with their own dick, being closeted or a former theatre kid—simply could not get in the way of going on a date with someone he met online, because it was such a numbers game. And also because some people were just really bad at writing profiles and texting, but were perfectly okay people when he met them. So he pared it down to absolutes: were they racist, sexist, and/or extremely Republican? If not, he’d try it.

So even though Bucky was swanning around the house in Steve’s Doc Martens (he still hadn’t given them back), looking by turns wonderfully comfy to sit on and like his cheekbones might cut a beam of sunlight in half, Steve persisted. He kept chatting with Curtis, and Josh, and Dom, and yes, even bigdickdaddy30869. He stayed the course. And when he got tired of trying to come up with flirty ways to explain that he wasn’t the size queen bottom baby twink of their dreams, but was instead just a guy from Brooklyn with some health issues and a chip on his shoulder the size of the One World Trade Center, Nat and Sam were there to shore him up. 

“I’m not saying going after Bucky would be a really bad idea, because we don’t know. He clearly finds you attractive, but he’s gonna be in that house that you bought to live in for the rest of your life—he’s gonna be there for longer than you are. And if it doesn’t go the way you want, it could get really bad for you. Best case, you fall in love with the guy, he likes the sex but can’t love you back, and you have to see him everyday. Worst case, I dunno. He’s not human, Steve. Just…be careful. You’re doing the right thing and you know it. Keep your head on straight, okay? We gotchu,” Sam said on one of the days when Steve’s willpower was wavering. 

Nat facetimed him every day or so and just gave him the stink eye until he either laughed (a strong day) or yelled, “ _Okay_ I get it already” (a weak day). 

One big problem with trying to flirt with guys on the internet was that he mostly worked from home and _on_ the home, these days, unless he needed the heavier duty equipment in his studio—and, as Sam had pointed out, Bucky was always around at the house (Steve didn’t think he slept, once he got through his stint on the couch). Especially since he’d decided to stop being mad at Steve after their talk in the kitchen, he helped him out with the many DIY restoration and renovation projects going on at once, lifting things and meeting him in the middle and generally making everything feel more fun and fast than it would if Steve were doing this alone, like he’d originally planned. 

It felt like having a partner, a little bit, and the solid domestic comfort of that was nearly as seductive as the way Bucky joyfully threw off his sweaty tank top, still excited to show off the little physical things his body did now. Dammit, the way he preened, glistening faintly in the afternoon light, cords of muscle obvious in his arms and his—the less Steve thought about his chest, the better it would be for everyone, he was sure. 

But beyond being a constant temptation for Steve, the bigger problem with his presence was that Bucky kept asking who he was texting, and what about, and when Steve acted cagey with his answers, unable to outright lie but unable to tell him, he began to get more clever about finding out. Boundaries: not Bucky’s strong suit. 

He stopped asking when he saw Steve with his phone out, since he seemed to accept that he wouldn’t get a straight ( _heh_ ) answer about it. Instead, it seemed to become a kind of game of opposite-gotcha for him, doing his best to sneak up on him without disappearing to do it. So far, he had plainly told Steve that he knew that he was talking to a lot of different people since Bucky was occasionally able to see their names pop up on his lock screen before he could swipe it away. 

To be honest, Steve wasn’t sure why he was trying to hide this from Bucky at all. He had barely understood what kissing was just a few weeks ago—there was no way he’d developed enough romantic experience to be jealous, and it was getting weird to keep worrying about keeping it secret, as if Steve was cheating on him or something. Which. That was so far from being the situation that it might as well have been the punchline to a dadaist joke. 

bigdickdaddy30869: **been thinking more about meeting up**

Steve: **Oh yeah? I’d be down**

bigdickdaddy30869: **yeah baby, love to finally kiss that mouth**

bigdickdaddy30869: **there’s a bar a few blocks from me by bergen stop**

bigdickdaddy30869: **i wanna meet this hot totally-not-a-twink, take you home sometime ;)**

Despite being annoyed that Roman (that was his actual human name, which thankfully he hadn’t been weird about giving up) still seemed to like joking about Steve’s reticence to be called a twink, he reminded himself of his online dating standbys: he wasn’t sexist, racist, or a republican, so until they met and he could really find out who he was, there was no reason not to agree. Besides…it wasn’t like he was exactly _opposed_ to casual sex, if it happened. It might do him some good. Get his focus back, maybe.

So decided, he moved to reply, when the phone was snatched out of his hand by a glowering Bucky. Steve hadn’t heard him come in.

 _Shit._

“Hey!” he protested, but Bucky only turned into a cat, scooped the phone up in his mouth, and leapt his way to the top of the fridge. That was definitely one of the places in the kitchen that Steve, at 5’7”, couldn’t reach without a footstool. Bucky definitely knew that. He’d grabbed the stove manual from the top of it for Steve just a few days ago.

“That’s a dirty trick, Barnes,” he grumbled, hands on his hips.

The fridge shook a little when Bucky transformed again. “You’re a dirty trick,” he muttered nonsensically back, crossing his legs to get comfortable and wiping the phone screen off on his sleeve before looking at it. 

_Mary and Joseph, I hope that thing’s locked itself again,_ Steve thought, half prayer, half swear.

Either it wasn’t, or Bucky knew his password, because Bucky’s face a few seconds later… Steve flushed. He wasn’t sure if it was from anger, guilt, or embarrassment, but likely a useless and horrible cocktail of all three. Roman had been, ah, pretty vocal the other night about the things he hoped Steve would let him do to him if they met up. 

_Fuck_ , he didn’t want Bucky reading those. Or any of them at all.

Steve knew why he was trying to date and he knew it was the smart thing to do and he knew his friends were probably right and that they wanted what was best for him. And he _knew_ pursuing whatever this…nebulous attraction was that hovered in the air between him and Bucky…he knew it would consume him if he let it. He was already deep enough to feel the gravity of it pulling at him. (But Steve wasn’t named ‘Most Stubborn Asshole’ by his high school’s yearbook staff for four years in a row for nothing.)

He knew all of this, but the pale, distraught look on Bucky’s face was still nearly enough to move him. 

He stared down at the phone screen long after he had stopped scrolling up the history of their conversation, even beyond when the screen clearly went dark, locking itself again (for all the good that did Steve _now_ ). When he looked up, his eyes were—Steve looked down at his shoes, and took a deep breath to compose himself before meeting that gaze again.

“Is he,” Bucky croaked, his usual soft tenor gone more than a little hoarse, and cleared his throat, “Were. Are you going to let him?”

There was any number of explicit things Roman had said he would like to do, and there was no part of Steve that wanted to list them, when Bucky already looked hurt and conflicted just reading them. But the imp inside him was desperately, unfairly curious to know exactly which thing had affected the guy he liked the most. Just this once, he gave in. “Let him do what, Bucky?” he said, and without meaning to, it came out in a whisper.

Bucky closed his eyes and breathed a hard puff of air out his nose as though pained at the imagining of it. When he spoke again, though, his voice and eyes were clear as crystal and just as hard. “Are you going to let him bring you h-home?”

Steve was stunned.

Of all the things that he expected him to say, that was nowhere near the list. Bringing someone home was barely a euphemism for sex, nothing like the other things Roman had texted—but that’s when he realized that, to a domovoi like Bucky, that was probably as explicit as it got. Maybe especially given his recent experience with abandonment. 

If it wasn’t clear how much the idea hurt Bucky, he would almost find the answer sweet. He sighed, letting his hands drop. “Will you—come down from there, Buck. Please.”

After a moment, he did, dropping down on the balls of his feet with silent grace. He stayed next to the fridge, watching him warily. 

“It’s hard to take you seriously when you’re crouched on top of the fridge,” he joked anemically. 

Bucky said nothing in response, though his eyes flicked to the door as if he was thinking better of staying to hear him out. Steve switched tracks hurriedly. “To answer your question, no, not in the way you may be thinking. If I did go to his, it would be to visit for a night and then I’d come back the next day. Remember when I had to sleep at Ma’s that week when they took all the asbestos outta the walls? It would be like that.”

“…I think I know what you mean, and. That helps a little but. Steve. D’you really think I’m that dumb? I’m not human, but I’m also not a child,” he said, sneering on the word ‘child’.

He blinked, a little thrown. He had been so sure that would clear the air for them. “I know ya ain’t,” he stumbled, “You don’t gotta be rude. Just tell me what your problem is.”

“My problem,” growled Bucky, and Steve winced at what a misstep that word had been. Bucky stalked towards him until their toes were nearly touching and he had to tilt his head to meet his stormy eyes. “My _problem_ , Rogers, is why you would let someone else bring you home and kiss you and do any of that other _shit_ to you, when I’m right here. I’m right _fucking_ here, Steve.”

He let out a whoosh of breath like he’d been punched, because it sure as hell had felt like one. Bucky was so close, leaning down now to meet his eyes, that his curls brushed against Steve’s forehead. 

“I don’t like you goin’ out ta meatheads like that, out there where I can’t protect you. If ya gotta do that shit, why not stay here? Do it with me instead. I don’t mind,” Bucky shrugged, smiling, as if this wasn’t the exact reason Steve absolutely could not do as he was suggesting.

Steve’s mouth felt sour. He took several steps back and crossed his arms. “I don’t need protection from no one, least of all you. An’ if you knew anything about humans at all, you’d know _that shit_ is kinda important. It’s not enough that you ‘don’t mind’, _Jesus_ , Bucky,” he said, shaking his head and taking a step to storm out of the room.

“Don’t,” Bucky’s voice stalled him. “Okay, I get I’m not enough, just. Don’t leave.”

He felt his whole posture soften despite himself. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Buck. This is my home for good, and you’re always gonna be welcome in it. But if we’re gonna live together, I need to go out and have fun with some men or women sometimes. Maybe eventually I’ll find a good one to bring home so I won’t have to go out anymore.”

This, oddly, did not appear to console Bucky. “Yeah,” he said anyway, “Okay. Can you…do me one favor though?”

Steve nodded, curious.

“When you do go out, don’t do it with him,” he said, pointing at the phone before tossing it in a gentle arc back to Steve. “I don’t care how little you think I know about humans. I know a shitface when I see one.”

He laughed through the heavy feeling in the air and tried to ignore the way his heart felt like it was being closed in a tight fist. “Alright, Barnes. You got yourself a deal.”

Steve had expected another week of Bucky giving him the (often literal) cold shoulder, after all that, and the talk he’d felt the need to have the next day with him too, about respecting his right to privacy. Little things like ‘don’t look through my phone without asking’, ‘don’t read my bullet journal without asking’, ‘no, asking when I’m asleep does not count’, and so on. He knew it wouldn’t sooth any tempers to add all that, but this was _Steve’s_ house too. And he had worked too hard for too long to get the money together for his own home. He deserved to have his boundaries respected. They would learn to compromise if it killed him. 

He walked into the kitchen after only a few days of silence from Bucky to find the domovoi himself leaning back in the wicker chair, letting the sun warm his face with eyes closed. The early morning light slanted across his eyelashes and nose, gilding him. For a moment, he was still, and looked so like the bronze statues Steve had once marveled over on his study abroad trip to Venice. He did this, sometimes: closed his eyes and simply let himself feel what the present brought him. Steve almost thought Bucky could lead a zen revolution, but then he remembered all the other many un-chill things he did. 

He was aware that Steve was staring, because the edge of his mouth ticked up in a lazy smile, eyes still closed. “He emerges,” he said in a mock announcer voice.

Steve was feeling pretty shitty from the explosion of some fun new pollen varietals down the street (yaaaaay neighborhood beautification projects), so he’d slept in an hour or so more than usual and was only now braving the wilds beyond his bedroom to get some much-needed lemon ginger tea (And toast. So much toast). The fact that Bucky was not only staying in the room after he entered it, but also talking to him fairly normally—this was good news he could use in his day. “Hey there, Buck,” he said.

He opened one eye to see him, and then the other, straightening in concern. “What’sa matter? You gettin’ sick?”

“Nah, just fuggin’ allergies. It’s a beautiful day outside, so obviously my body has to kill itself in response. Cool. Very chill, body. Ugh,” he sniffed, sneezed into his elbow, and stared at his electric water heater, urging it to work faster.

“Hm,” Bucky said, trying to approximate a sympathetic ear, despite the fact he was clearly outright laughing at Steve.

“You shut yer mouth, Mr. Magical Unicorn. I don’t wanna hear it. I bet you’ve never gotten sick once in your whole long crazy existence, huh? God, that’s depressing. You want some tea?”

He did. They sat in the pool of sunlight as it migrated gently along the table, the real wooden table he’d gotten moved in the other day, and watched each other enjoy their tea. Eventually, Steve took out his bullet journal to plot out the next week and Bucky was there to remind him of appointments he forgot, or to point out that replacing the railings wouldn’t take as long with the both of them working together. That morning settled like a little warm knot in his belly, keeping him tethered to the belief that things were looking up, that they could face any challenge as long as they faced it together. 

Steve wouldn’t realize it for a while yet, but his heart made a decision that morning.

He kept texting guys—everyone except Roman—and Bucky kept leaving the room every time he noticed him doing it. Steve was determined not to feel bad about it, and every time Nat called and saw that look in his eye, she said, “Repeat after me: ‘I deserve reciprocal love and happiness, and I will not settle just because my roommate is grumpy about it.’” 

“You know he can hear you, right?”

“Good,” she said savagely. 

Natasha was not _currently_ Bucky’s biggest fan. To be fair, every time they were in the same room for longer than ten minutes, someone ended up throwing a knife. (Prior to this, he hadn’t even realized Nat had a thing for knives. He was learning all sorts of exciting new things this month.) The only reason he didn’t go apeshit about it is that he could make Bucky patch and repaint every single hole they created in his new drywall. Plus, one time _he_ was the one throwing a knife. He found it disturbingly fun. So it’d be hypocritical to complain too much.

Steve didn’t really understand what Bucky was up to, but other than leaving the room when he was chatting, he acted as he had in the months before the robbers broke in, like none of it had happened. He acted like he used to, that is, with one notable exception: he was much more tactile with Steve, and where previously he had kept to his version of 40’s casual, now he took to stealing and repurposing Steve’s accessories on top of a more modern wardrobe. His favorites were Steve’s Doc Martens, though the tartan wool scarf his Nana had sent him from Ireland was a close second. 

Seeing Bucky like that, carrying two full buckets of paint up the stairs in front of him and draped in his ancestral clan’s colors…Steve felt personally targeted. Like the devil had taken him to the highest tower on the highest mountain to tempt him with the world. Except Bucky in those form fitting jeans was the world. Bucky clomping joyfully in his Doc Martens up and down and up the porch steps just to confuse the neighbors, that was what the devil showed him. Bucky ducking his aristocratic nose into the scarf to breathe deeply, his dark hair curling over his eyes, that was what tempted Steve Rogers.

Fortunately for Steve, he had no shortage of invitations with which to distract himself. Despite his rules and the goal he set out with when he started, he was still pickier than usual about it, so he didn’t accept or ask anyone on a date for another week. He could admit to himself that he was stalling, but felt at a loss for what he could possibly be stalling _for_. He made himself stop mostly out of annoyance. 

The day he finally had a date with one of the men he’d been talking to—a mostly acceptable guy in his thirties named Josh, who was, though a former theater kid, at least fun to talk to—Nat, Wanda, and Sam took him out for brunch to ‘celebrate’. “This is kind of a weird thing to celebrate,” he said, after they’d ordered a round of challah french toast and a pitcher of mimosas (plus a Bloody Mary just for Natasha).

“There is no event too small to celebrate with brunch,” Sam posited wisely, and the waiter high fived him as they passed with a handful of checks. Steve caught Natasha smiling fondly into her spicy spiked tomato juice at that, but didn’t out her for having human emotions. 

“Besides, this isn’t a small thing. Steven Grant, do you realize that you haven’t even tried to go on a date with anyone, or just have a one night stand, for over six months? I don’t think you’ve had a dry spell that long since high school. There’s nothing wrong with not having sex, obviously,” she added, gesturing to herself. “But our sexualities are very different, and you’ve never had much trouble finding someone you can have fun with.”

Wanda hummed, but added nothing, sipping her mimosa and waiting for him to talk. 

“I guess I hadn’t really noticed it was that long,” Steve mused, surprised. “That’s since right before I got the house, so it makes sense. Been busy fixin’ it up,” he concluded.

At this, Wanda snorted a little into her drink, and then set wide innocent eyes to Steve to say, “Yes, Steven. I am sure it is nothing else about your house that could have distracted you from sex.” 

Sam laughed. “Yep, it’s all the crown moldings and flooring, that’s what it is.”

Even Steve had to crack a smile at that. His friends did keep him honest, even when he lied to himself. “Yeah, okay, so maybe not. I don’t think it’s just about Bucky though. For the past year, I dunno…having fun hasn’t really felt as fulfilling as it used ta, ya know? Especially since I was house hunting, it got me thinking more, about what the rest of my life could look like—and what I want from it.”

The french toast arrived, so there was a lull as they all dug in and made appreciative noises at each other. Sam started drafting his Yelp review, taking artsy pictures of the before and after spread and typing out little phrases they said to describe their food. When the waiter came by, he asked for their name so he could compliment them directly in the review, and they beamed. Sam was good people. 

He proved it again, when after several threads of winding conversation had opened, closed, and diverged, he remembered to follow up with Steve. “Earlier, you mentioned wanting something different than you used to. Do you know what it is you want now, or d’ya just have a general idea?”

“Oh,” Steve said, not having expected a return to this topic, as if this entire brunch wasn’t an elaborate ruse engineered by Natasha to prod him to reveal his secrets (he was beginning to think that this might actually be a very gentle intervention). “I guess so. I was getting ready to have a permanent place to live, an’ that felt great, an’ I realized I wanted something like that in a relationship. Ya know. A partner.”

“A co-pilot,” Sam said softly, and Steve nodded at him, glad that he understood. 

“A comrade,” Natasha and Wanda said in simultaneous deadpan, and then turned to each other with delight. 

“High fives!” shrieked Wanda, excited, and Natasha laughed and complied.

That night, Steve couldn’t find his Doc Martens fucking anywhere. He just got out of the shower and he was on track to get to the date early, but the restaurant was more than four subway stops away so he didn’t have too much extra time to waste. “Bucky!” he yelled. “Where did you put my boots?!”

“I don’t remember!” Bucky yelled back from the living room. 

Steve rolled his eyes and started down the stairs, grabbing his wallet on the way. “I don’t believe you. You wear them all the time. Where did you put them?”

“Nowhere,” Bucky said from the couch Steve had finally moved in, eyes wide and mouth pouty. _Jesus_ , Steve was weak for that mouth. He needed to leave yesterday.

He rubbed a hand across his forehead to keep from ruining his hair by pulling at it in frustration the way he really wanted to. “Buck,” he sighed. “I don’t have time for this right now. They’re _my_ damn boots. Give ‘em up. Or I won’t let you wear ‘em no more.”

Bucky’s face turned briefly mutinous before he relented with a strained sigh. “Fine. Asshole. Here,” he grumbled, eyes downcast. 

And then he disappeared.

“God _damn_ it!” Steve found himself shouting, into the empty air.

He felt a tap on his left shoulder, and turned. Bucky was holding the boots and glaring. “I said _here_ ,” he snapped, and shoved them into Steve’s hands before stalking around the corner, no doubt to disappear again. 

“Oh. Thank you,” he said, lamely, once again to an empty room.

The date did not go well.

Or rather, from Josh’s perspective, he was sure it went quite well, and Josh would be surprised not to receive an offer for a second date. He got Steve to laugh a few times, and they were leaning towards each other over the table by the end of it. They even kissed briefly at the subway stop, just a short peck before parting ways, which was more chaste than he must have expected, but he would brush that off.

The problem was that Steve had just—he was trying so hard, the whole time, to be interesting and engaged in what this person had to say. He did not want to be the dick on a date with someone when they’re clearly thinking of a different person the whole time. He wanted to get himself to imagine kissing Josh deeper, or build some kind of life side by side. But Steve could not do it. Not only did it feel wrong, but he literally could not imagine wanting a relationship with the guy. 

He could not imagine wanting to build a life with anyone but Bucky.

“Aw, fuck,” he muttered aloud to himself, thunking the back of his head against the subway car’s window as he made his way back. “This is more than a crush, isn’t it.”

“Big mood,” whispered the drunk girl curled up against her girlfriend across from him.

On the walk back home, he started to wonder about what Bucky was feeling now, and about what he’d been feeling for weeks. He wondered whether he’d really been fair to him, acting on so many assumptions as he was. Self-reflection was important, but this was brutal. The best outcome for Steve was that Bucky did want him back, but if he did, then… that meant he was likely in pain. It was a horrible thing to realize, that the best case scenario for Bucky was that he had no feelings for Steve, that their best case scenarios were mutually exclusive. Man, was his therapist gonna get a doozy on Tuesday.

He clattered tiredly up the steps and stuck the key in the lock—or tried to, because before he could, it swung open, revealing the man he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about for months.

“Hey,” Bucky said, opening the door wider to let him in, a note of questioning surprise coloring his voice. “Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some thoughts on Bucky's sexuality in this fic: I wrote him as demisexual, because he would have no previous context or general drive for sex naturally, not being human. But when he's in the human world in a human body for long enough to notice, he has the typical human body's desire for touch, companionship, even sex (with the right person), all those things that our hormones mess with. But even if he developed those desires, he wouldn't consider acting on them without feeling a strong emotional connection to Steve, because he's still (mentally and metaphysically) a domovoi, and domovois are spirits who value strong relationship ties above all else. 
> 
> I'm demi/grey-ace, so this actually made Bucky's sensations/feelings about this pretty easy and fun to write.


	5. Don't Find Another Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky sets some more things on fire, flirts outrageously, and explores his body (and Steve's). Steve is sad but horny and too competitive for his own good. Natasha & Co. despairs of their dumbassery.  
> ~  
> “H-uh-hmm,” Steve began, choked. “Heya Buck. Enjoy your shower?” he asked, edging slowly past in the hallway, trying his best to avoid brushing bodily against him.
> 
> Bucky grinned lasciviously. “Oh, yes,” he purred, and held back a cackle at the way Steve’s throat bobbed noticeably.
> 
> BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. screeched the smoke detector above their heads.
> 
> “Oh my god, Bucky, did you set the bathroom on fire??” Steve yelled, and pushed past him to see the curtain, still smoking lightly and clearly ruined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the Tegan and Sara song, because I'm just that kind of gay. Is this a good time to mention I have a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4uLYTFDy9yNy7mJlrcwmZf) for this fic on spotify? 
> 
> A scheduling note: this week I have finals and work training, so Chapter 6 (the last chapter!!!) will go up on Saturday instead of Friday as planned. I love this story way too much and have been so moved by all your kudos and comments (I'll reply when I can but I promise I read and sigh lovingly over each one!)--I don't want to rush the conclusion and ruin the pacing <3 
> 
> The hornier these chapters get, the harder it is to choose nursery rhymes to match them. This is an old German poem called “The moon is risen”:  
> “The moon is risen, beaming,  
> The golden stars are gleaming  
> So brightly in the skies;  
> The hushed, black woods are dreaming,  
> The mists, like phantoms seeming,  
> From meadows magically rise.”

After Steve got back from his _date_ —despite his best efforts Bucky could not think that word without the urge to set things on fire—he stopped hunching over his phone protectively whenever Bucky walked in the room. He couldn’t tell if that meant he’d stopped expecting him to steal it or if he’d deleted the ‘apps’ to focus on this one guy. He didn’t really feel like he had a right to ask. He was very aware that it’d been kind of a weird move to steal Steve’s shoes before his night out. Steve was right—he bought this house. They were going to need to learn to live together, and for Steve that meant finding a human to have sex with and eventually invite home. 

Bucky didn’t fully get why Steve needed some human asshole for that, but he’d made it pretty clear that he didn’t see Bucky as a—viable option. So. He would. Stop trying to kiss him. Stop wearing his things. Definitely stop asking him who he was texting or going to see when he went out, because not only was it not his business, he would rather be able to pretend it was Natasha or another friend. 

He _should_ stop eating off of Steve’s plate, since when Sam had come over last and saw him do it, he had reacted like it was _not_ normal human friend behavior. He had pointed back and forth between the two of them and said, “I want it known that what y’all just did is weird as hell and I want no information about any of it.”

He should. But—and this was embarrassing, that Bucky still felt bound like this—it was a part of their accords. They’d shaken on it. And he was reluctant to give it up, along with everything else he had to. 

When he walked into the room now, he frequently felt Steve’s eyes trace him, and it baffled him. Anytime Bucky turned to meet his eyes, he didn’t look caught out—only thoughtful, like he was puzzling something out. After only a few days of all this, he felt like a raw nerve. He’d think it was pathetic, being this thin-skinned, but he gave himself a bit of grace since he was still new to the body thing. Plus, he’d never really had to repress many urges before, and now he was having to remember not to do most of the things he wanted to do, when it came to Steve. 

Bucky was having his few bites of Steve’s lunch—some kind of corn and chicken salad he said cost him way too much money—when Steve put his fork down and straightened his back, lifted his jaw. He set down his own fork and waited. He knew by now the signs of a Steve squaring up for an important conversation. 

“So, uh, you never asked how the date went,” he said, and Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“No,” he replied in a tone that he hoped conveyed how little he liked this new subject, and pointedly continued not to ask how the date went.

This, more than anything else, seemed to fluster Steve. A dull red stained his cheeks and he swiped his hair back behind his ears, which he always did more often when he was nervous. “Ah ha. Right. Well, it went—”

Bucky shoved his chair back from the table and stood up with such abruptness that his friend leaned back in his chair a little. “I don’t want to know this.”

He turned to leave the room, and this time when Steve caught his arm to stall him, he shook him off and kept walking. “Bucky, seriously? Buck, c’mon, wait—”

“No, Rogers. I’ll see you _tomorrow_ ,” he said through gritted teeth, still walking. He hated himself for needing to get out of sight before he could slide safely out of the material plane, away from where Steve could reach him, away from his stupid, dumb, idiot body and its reactions to him. Hating that Bucky was still following an accord, like his word mattered, like he was an ounce of what he used to be.

“It was awful, the date was awful,” Steve blurted out before he could get much farther. 

He paused, and was angrier at himself for it. Steve rushed on, “That what ya wanted to hear? It’s the truth. Guy was fine, nice even. Pleasant conversation, good food. But Bucky, I hated every second of it.”

He made a face. “I don’t…want that. I wanted you to have…a good time.”

Steve laughed, surprising both of them. “No, you didn’t. ’Salright. I don’t blame you. I just, I guess I was mixed up. About, ya know.”

Bucky did not know. Why would Bucky know?? He’d only been consistently corporeal for a few months. He made another face to make it clear just how little he knew. 

Steve sighed. “Fuck this,” he muttered to himself, and grabbed him by his old-fashioned collar to drag Bucky’s mouth down to his in a searing, glorious, world-shattering kiss.

So far, Bucky had had three different chances to kiss Steve. He blew the first one pretty definitively, but then they’d kissed themselves out of time on the couch, and he officially became a Big Fan of what Steve could do with his mouth. Having a third chance felt like an absurd bounty of luck to heap on his head. 

He still didn’t know really what he was supposed to be doing, so he kept breathing in loudly at awkward moments or knocking their noses together by kissing at the wrong angle, and once he bit down way too hard on Steve’s bottom lip and broke the skin. He licked at the little pearl of blood that welled up in apology, and something very surprising happened. Steve groaned and just—went a little feral on him, pushing him bodily back till he stumbled and sprawled against the steps, barely avoiding knocking his head. Far from being apologetic, Steve bared his teeth in a sharp grin and tackled him, running his smile along Bucky’s throat in joyful threat before licking into his mouth again. 

Bucky couldn’t keep his hands still. It felt like he’d lose this any second, from how on and off this had been, so he was filled with the desire to touch _everything_ , feel everything he could about this third kiss and bottle it deep inside himself, where he could take it out sometimes and gaze at it in the light whenever he might need it. He ran his hands down the slightly crooked mountain range of Steve’s back to grasp at his hips, which bucked against him when he gave them a squeeze. That movement aligned his body all along Bucky’s and he felt something hot and novel pressed against his thigh. 

Curious and kiss-drunk, he rubbed a hand against it and Steve jerked forward, making a low, wrecked noise into his open mouth. He let out a questioning nonsense word and did it again, this time in a longer, slower press against the bulge in Steve’s jeans. 

Steve grunted sharply, kissed him lightly a few times, and lifted back away. “W-wait, hang on, Buck, hang on.”

Bucky felt like he was going to cry. He had never cried before so he wasn’t sure, but this sharp, reverberating pain like a bell tolling was surely close. He’d screwed it up again, somehow, by knowing nothing and being nothing like everyone else Steve’d ever been with, and it would be off again and maybe he’d never have another chance—

He whined and pulled Steve bodily back to him. Steve let out a _oof_ and moved his hands to his shoulders, like he was seeking leverage to move away, but gods forgive him, Bucky wanted one last taste before it was all taken away again. He had even less finesse now, he knew, this desperate, biting nonsense of lips that barely lined up, and this was almost worse. Like he was ruining the good memory already, and he couldn’t hold back another keening noise at that—

Steve shoved him, hard, till he was pushed entirely into the stairs and staring up at Steve, who looked…his first thought, stupidly, was that he looked like he’d been thoroughly and beautifully kissed, and it made him want to do it again. But, right, that was what he’d been trying to do when he was shoved off. So maybe he should stop thinking that. Steve pushed at his shoulder again to get his attention properly. 

“Bucky. You can’t ever do that again,” Steve said very seriously.

“Fuck,” he whispered, without meaning to, and then quickly revised it to, “Okay. Y-yeah, I-I get it, okay.”

He frowned at Bucky, assessing. “I don’t think you do get it. What do you think I mean?”

“No more, you mean no more kissing,” Bucky swallowed.

“Oh, Buck,” he sighed, looking at him with a mix of sadness and fondness. Steve brushed a gentle hand through Bucky’s bangs and he closed his eyes to soak up the touch. “No. We should definitely be doing more kissing, and we will, later. I meant that when I tell you to wait or stop, you absolutely cannot keep going, okay? That’s wrong.”

Bucky sat up and they rearranged themselves a little, so they were facing each other on the steps instead of awkwardly sprawled. “Oh. I think when I’m thinking straight, I do know that. I’m real sorry, Steve. That was—I’m sorry.”

“Just don’t do it again,” Steve reiterated, and then his expression turned a little less severe. “I told you to wait because I wasn’t sure if you actually knew what you were getting yourself into, with that hand of yours,” he smirked a little, and Bucky started breathing again. 

“Gettin’ myself into? I was makin’ ya feel good. That’s all I care about,” he shrugged. 

Steve smiled. “God, you’re cute. But honest, Buck. That’s a little different than kissing.”

Bucky scoffed. “Rogers, I’ve been around families for hundreds of years. I’m not naive. I’ve seen enough kinds o’ sex to turn your hair white. Do you think I don’t know a dick when I feel one?”

“I dunno, Buck, have you ever touched one before?” he asked, a little sardonic.

Bucky felt his cheeks heat up, which was _ridiculous_. So what if he hadn’t? So what if he had never _personally_ had sex—it wasn’t like he was some innocent budding flower. Some of the Barnes and Barinovs were randy folks, not too discriminating about gender, and inventive besides. It wasn’t—Bucky hadn’t been watching them for his own enjoyment, obviously, they were family, but he could appreciate that they were having fun. He far preferred that to the couples who saw it as a grim duty, which was just depressing all around. 

The point was— “I’ve seen more dicks than you,” he blurted out, in such a defensively competitive tone that he winced right after he said it.

Steve threw his head back and laughed long and hard—long enough that Bucky crossed his arms to grumpily wait him out. 

“Well, I _have_ ,” he grumbled, causing another gale of glee from Steve, who was sitting close enough to him that he could feel his shoulders moving against his. Despite his annoyance, his lip quirked up to one side at the sight. 

“Sure, I’ll give ya that,” Steve allowed, after he’d calmed again. “But, I gotta ask ya some things to ease my mind.”

Bucky gestured him to go on, curious.

“Do you know why you wanna do that with me? Or, do you even?”

It was difficult not to stare at him with pure incredulity at that. “ _Yes_ , I wanna have sex with you, _obviously_ , Steve.”

His cheeks tinted, “That’s—not the more important question. Flattering, but. What I mean is, do you know _why_ you want to have sex, when you haven’t before?”

Bucky stared at him some more, aghast, and then gestured broadly at Steve’s entire body in answer. Steve chuckled but shook his head, clearly needing more. “Think about it a little,” he said, and then began fiddling with his phone, as though to emphasize that he would wait for an answer.

 _Ugh._ And this day had been going so well.

Why did anyone want to have sex with anyone? Based on his many (many) years of watching families form: because they liked someone, they found them attractive, they wanted to be closer to them. He didn’t think his reasons were too different from the norm, other than… “Besides the obvious reasons? I’ve only been in the physical plane this consistently since I met you. There’s lots of new things my body experiences because of that, that I’ve grown to like a lot. Like trying food, taking hot showers, kissing you,” he said, gesturing again with a wink, and Steve ducked his head and laughed quietly. “I just—I think it would be really fun. I trust you, and I really can’t think of anyone else I know nearly enough to try this with. If you don’t wanna, I ain’t gonna ask for it. But if you _do_ —well. Why the hell shouldn’t we give it a go?”

Steve was quiet, chewing on his lip the way he did when he was really thinking hard—or when he was holding words back. Bucky was, honestly, pretty into the contrast of his white teeth against the chapped pink flush of his lip, and was having a nice little daydream about kissing him again, when Steve’s teeth released it to speak. “Probably gonna make you mad, but I need ya ta think about this for a few days before we do anything, okay? Not just for you. I need to think some too.”

Bucky nodded quickly, hardly believing his luck, but unable to keep himself from pushing a little. “How many days,” he bargained.

He raised an eyebrow. “Really, Barnes?”

He shrugged, unrepentant. Steve sighed, his mouth twitching, and said, “Two days minimum.”

“Two days, two sunsets, or two days, two sunrises?” he asked. Listen, he was a fairytale creature. This shit mattered. Plus if it was two sunsets, they could do something tomorrow night and it would fulfill the accord. 

_So I’m horny. Can you blame me?_ he thought.

Steve narrowed his eyes and said, “Two sunrises, ya little sneak.”

“Damn,” Bucky said, smiling winsomely. 

_Mother of shitdamn_ , _two days is a long time_. 

It seemed especially long for someone waiting to be allowed to have sex with the guy he liked, given that they lived in the same house and unless Steve left to do errands, he was always aware of where he was in the house and what he was doing. But for the Bucky of several months ago, two days had felt as short as the length of a second. It was truly astonishing how much his perspective had changed since then—and, as with most reasons Bucky had found himself changing of late, much of that was down to Steve’s involvement. He thought that once upon a time, he might have very much resented him for it. 

But the Barnes had left, and Bucky had—improbably—learned to survive without them. He would not begrudge himself any change he underwent in the pursuit of that survival. More than that, no, he was starting to feel like celebrating them. He had no real idea of what he had become now, this not-ghost, not-domovoi, nonhuman creature. But, the more he thought about it, in that two day “time out”, the more he began to wonder if it really mattered at all _what_ he was. Maybe he could be a ‘who’ now. Maybe it mattered more, since he wasn’t any ‘what’ in particular, who he was becoming.

He thought very deeply, as Steve had requested, for eight hours. By then, he felt like he’d pretty much nailed it down, but he still had — _damn—_ thirty-two more hours to go before he was allowed to ask Steve to have sex with him. And, well, he was more than a little wound up from the memory of today’s kiss on the stairs. Now every time he walked up or down said stairs, he was reminded of the noises they’d made together, or the way Steve had squeezed at his hips and rubbed his strong hands down his thighs—

 _Oh._ Hello _. What’s this?_ Bucky thought, staring down at his lap. Obviously he knew, objectively, that he had a dick, but he’d never really _done_ anything with that information before. This kind of thing just…didn’t happen over There. He glanced up and around—thankfully Steve was out picking up some stuff from Home Depot. 

He looked down at the bulge in his slacks. Did he get rid of it? He remembered cold showers being the recommended choice for men, as far as he’d seen. He shrugged and slipped up to the bathroom, but when he turned the shower on, he hesitated. Bucky didn’t like cold showers all that much, was the thing. When he was first shown how to work the shower, after he had gotten particularly sweaty carrying all the wood for the floors inside, Steve forgot to explain the temperature dial until after he got out. So he spent a miserable five minutes shivering his balls off. It was not an experience he was looking forward to repeating.

There were other options, right? He didn’t _have_ to get rid of it the cold way. Bucky had lived in a house with more teenagers than he could count. They were pros at figuring out how to masturbate in a full house with no one else the wiser—it was a very specific skill. Besides, Steve was out, and he was more than a little curious about what sensations he could pull from his physical form when he was alone.

He turned the temperature dial to warm, and got in the shower.

Despite the warmth, his body gave a full body shiver as he ran back through how it had felt, having Steve’s wiry body over his, that hot mouth licking and biting into his own, the scrape of his callouses against his jaw and neck when Steve used his hand to guide his head to the angle he liked. Bucky tipped his head back, closed his eyes under the stream and licked and bit at his own lips, trying to make that echo sing through him louder. He rubbed his hands up his thighs and squeezed at his hips in a clenching rhythm like Steve had, and felt a sharp string of arousal run from the hairs on the nape of his neck down to his curling toes. _There we go_ , he thought, excited.

He moved his hands as mindlessly as he could, hoping to surprise himself with where they went—it was hard to do, replicating the way another’s hands might move with desire for him, for this physical body he had chosen and kept, when of course he knew exactly what he was about to do before he did it. Doing it alone meant that extra layer of sparking shock was missing, but—it meant Bucky was in control of what happened. 

He could try whatever and respond however and no one would know, and that secret knowledge was a new thrill of its own. Bucky leaned against the shower wall and rolled his hips into the air in a slow movement, like a thundercloud billowing in on itself on the horizon, and felt the nudge of his dick against his thigh as it filled. He traced his fingers lightly up his thigh next to it, teasing but not touching yet. 

He gasped when he wrapped his other hand firmly around it, sending his body arching into it at the strength of this new rush of pleasure. The water caught in his lashes as he turned his head into the wall, breathing hard, his hand stroking down as his hips moved to meet it. He had to blink furiously to clear his eyes but no part of him cared. All Bucky’s attention was wrapped up in the movement of his wrist and the trembling, rising tide of pleasure inside him as it threatened the cliffs of his self-control in huge, delicious crashes. 

It crested and waned and crested higher again, and when he thumbed over the head of his dick, he groaned and the tide rushed fully through him, flooding him as he shook against the wall. His other hand spread and clenched and spread along the smooth wet porcelain, and Bucky heard his groan echo around him as though from outside himself. 

Time hadn’t paused, he knew, but, it felt like he had fallen out of it for a while by the time he opened his eyes again. He blinked to clear his lashes of the now lukewarm water. He grunted, annoyed, and glared at the shower head until the water ran hot again, as though sheepish to be caught lying down on the job. 

It was then that he noticed that the shower curtain was on fire.

“Oh, _damning_ fuckit!” he croaked. The whole side of it nearest to where he had been standing was ablaze, licking hungrily at the fabric and sending out the acrid smell of burnt plastic. In his rush to pull it into the shower to put it out, he ripped the shower pole out of its casing and sent the whole kit and caboodle crashing over on top of him, flames and fabric and pole and rings and all. 

“Shitting mother of shitfuckers!” came the muffled yell from under the pile, as the shower water did its work and slowly put out the fire. Bucky couldn’t see anything out of the white and grey plastic and polyester of the curtain, still wrestling to get out from under it, but he could smell the acrid smoke as it filled the room already full of the mist of a hot shower. 

_Wait. Barnes, you moron, you aren’t stuck,_ he reminded himself, rolled his eyes, and stepped over There. 

The shower rod toppled fully into the bathtub and the curtain let out a sad crinkling _flumph_ without him holding it up. He considered willing himself dry and clothed like he usually did after a shower, but thought having the full experience of toweling off could be nice. Besides…Steve might get back soon, and it would be fun to see how he reacted to seeing Bucky in a towel. He stepped back into the material plane, naked and unself-conscious, and grabbed a towel from the rack, rubbing it through his hair in a way that felt _extremely_ satisfying. He hummed happily, one of the old Russian folk tunes that mothers used to sing to their boys to coax them to sleep.

Steve was home, said his prickling awareness at the border of the property line. Bucky grinned, pleased his idea to tease him might come to fruition after all. Then he sensed Steve unlock the door and pause in the entryway—probably to do his routine stretch-and-hop, the one Bucky honestly even now was sad to be missing. He could feel the reverberation of the floor as he hopped, but seeing it was best. 

He wrapped the towel around his waist, tucking the edge to keep it up the way he’d seen Steve do, and opened the bathroom door once he knew his friend was about to reach the landing. He stepped out, whistling the little folk tune still, and shivered at the rush of cold dry air. Mist and smoke billowed out from the room around him, showcasing his still-dripping form very dramatically, he thought smugly.

He looked over at his friend as he reached the top of the stairs and said, as casually as possible, “Oh, hey, Steve. Did ya get everything you wanted?”

Steve was holding on to a few bags of what looked like screws and doorknobs and various wall hooks, but he looked up when Bucky spoke. His jaw dropped, cheeks and ears and the back of his neck flushing prettily as his eyes ran up along Bucky’s chest and neck, then back down, flush turning a deeper red. He flicked his eyes to the side, trying to pretend he wasn’t ogling Bucky, who preened at the attention. 

“H-uh-hmm,” Steve began, choked, and cleared his throat to try again. “Heya Buck. Enjoy your shower?” he asked, edging slightly past in the hallway as if trying his best to avoid brushing bodily against him.

Bucky grinned lasciviously. “Oh, _yes_ ,” he purred, and tried not to cackle at the way Steve’s throat bobbed noticeably.

 **BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.** screeched the smoke detector above their heads, interrupting a conversation that was heading in a direction he very much wanted to explore to complain about the gross-smelling smoke drifting from the doorway to the bathroom. Steve started, suddenly seeming to realize that it was really smoke, and not just humidity from his shower.

“Oh my god, Bucky, did you set the bathroom on _fire_??” Steve yelled, and pushed past him to see the curtain, still smoking lightly and clearly ruined, the shower water still going. 

_Oops, forgot to turn that off_ , Bucky winced a little, feeling pretty sheepish. It was one thing to mess with Steve on _purpose_ , but he hadn’t meant to do this bit of destruction at all. Having this little power over what energy he had left was honestly embarrassing, especially when it came to fire. Once, nine decades ago, when the houses around them were spreading fire like a virus, he had kept the Barnes house utterly unsinged by so much as a single spark. It was in all the papers as a baffling miracle the next week (he got some really nice cigars as offerings for that). 

Steve turned, hand pinching the bridge of his nose as though to stave off a sudden stress headache. “Are you serious,” he squinted incredulously. “How did you even— _why_ would you—”

“It’s not like I did it on purpose!” Bucky said, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. His nipples were pebbling and peaking uncomfortably in the cooler air of the hallway, wet as he was. A slow trickle of water ran from his hair down the nape of his neck and along his back, tickling annoyingly. He was beginning to regret the whole string of events that led to him standing here, mostly naked, while Steve turned off the shower and rustled about with the curtain to see if it could be saved, grumbling at him all the while. 

“Didn’t do it on purpose, my ass,” he was saying, unhooking the rings attaching it to the shower rod with curt, vicious movements of his wrist. Bucky was disturbed and exasperated that he found it kinda hot. Apparently he was finding everything about the little shit attractive, now. Great. “One does not simply set a wet shower curtain on fire,” he said, in a tone of voice like he was quoting something.

Bucky rolled his eyes and lounged against the doorframe, arranging his limbs to showcase their length and clearing his throat a little, hoping Steve would look up and be swayed again by the sight of him. No such luck. He continued to be ignored, other than the occasional grumbling recrimination as Steve would turn the curtain a new direction and find yet another brown or black stain. 

_Eh, screw this_ , he thought, and moved back into the hallway to step over There to get dry and clothed again. Bucky was pretty grumpy about it all, but especially at the way the buoyant, shaky happiness that had filled the whole of him just minutes ago in the shower had been so quickly squashed by the damn smoke alarm going off. When he stepped back in to the physical plane, dressed in his old casual 40s clothes, he realized it was still going off—Steve being otherwise occupied with his precious shower curtain. He’d probably turned his hearing aid off so he didn’t have to hear it so much. 

Bucky opened the hall window, focused on the smoke in the hallway, and created a few updrafts to move it out of the house. It took far too long compared to what he used to be able to do, more than 45 seconds, and far too much energy—his knees were shaking when the hallway was clear again. It was worth it for the peace that rang through the air in place of that damn beeping.

Steve came out of the bathroom, curtain folded under his arm, pressing the button on his hearing aid to turn it back on when he noticed the smoke was gone along with the noise. He did a double take at Bucky. “When did you have time to change?”

Bucky shrugged. “Don’t really need time. I can just step over There and back when I want to,” he admitted carelessly, realizing a second too late what that would reveal to Steve. 

He squinted at him before his eyes widened and he let out a big, unexpected belly laugh. “You did that on purpose! Jesus, Buck,” Steve sighed, smiling. “What am I s’posed to do with a guy like you?” 

“I dunno,” he shrugged again, his shoulders rounding inwards. Bucky felt suddenly vulnerable and alien, looking at his nails and twisting his fingers together in a way that had recently become very calming. “We’ll see, I guess.”

Steve winced just a little, around his eyes—Bucky only noticed because he noticed godsdamned everything about Steve now, even when he tried to turn it off. He was fucking tired of all this tension and waiting. “Hey, after dinner, ya wanna watch more Band of Brothers?” he asked, offering a distraction for the both of them, hoping it would be seen as a peace offering of sorts. 

“Oh. Yeah! Yeah, that sounds real good, Buck. Anything new you wanna try eating for dinner? There’s a Trinidadian place Wanda told me about I keep telling her I’m gonna try, if you feel like an adventure,” he said quickly, jumping on the subject change with an eager air the way Bucky knew he would. Steve, as much as he tried when it was important (see: this whole two day waiting period and the conversation that preceded it), did not enjoy talking about his feelings. 

“Sounds just fine to me, Rogers,” he said, mustering up another pale smile. 

_Gods above and below and around us, two days is a long ass time to wait._

After the second sunrise, Steve Rogers woke to an odd weight next to his head. He rolled over with a muzzled “wha?” that Bucky found searingly adorable, and jerked his head back when he was faced with Bucky’s cat form in a neat little loaf on his pillow, staring unblinkingly at him with slightly closed gray eyes. “ _J—esus_ mother—Bucky,” he swore, and covered his face with both hands to laugh disbelievingly into them.

Bucky stretched in one big satisfying arch, hopped out of view and then popped his head back up over the edge of the bed in his regular form, smiling mischievously. “G’morning, Stevie. It’s been two sunrises,” he said coaxingly, as though offering a sweet to a child.

Steve kept his hands over his face, continuing to laugh for several more seconds. He poked him, impatient, and Steve swatted back at him in response, though afterwards he moved to sit up against the headboard and patted the bedspread in front of him, inviting Bucky to join him. “This was a bad plan. I haven’t had my meds, breakfast, or coffee, and you know I’m barely human until I’ve had all three. You’re lucky I didn’t punch you on reflex for waking me like that.”

He continued to smile beatifically at him, crossing his legs to get comfortable and propping his face up on his fist. “Nah, pal, _you’re_ lucky you didn’t punch me on reflex. It would have ended real bad for your hand. Besides, who cares if you’re barely human? I’m not human at all, and you don’t see me complaining.”

Steve rolled his eyes, mouth twitching with suppressed humor. “The meds, breakfast, and coffee are non-negotiable, Barnes. You’re lucky I’m even talkin’ to ya, after the shit you pulled with the shower. You pulled the casings for the rod holders right outta the wall, screws and all. I had to take a second Home Depot run in a two day period for more screws.”

Bucky snickered. Steve waved his hand, “That ain’t even the worst part! You’ll never believe this—although—I guess you don’t know her—but there’s this girl named Darcy and she’s been popping up fuckin’ everywhere, I swear. If I had an ego, I’d think she was stalkin’ me, but as it is it’s still weird. She was at the cat shelter, and then she was the barista at Georgina’s, and _now_ she was my cashier both days at Home Depot! There’s no way she’s not doing it on purpose, Buck. She even got my number somehow a while back, keeps texting me cat memes. When I saw her again second day it was like I’d made her whole week by being bad at choosing screws, it was so embarrassing,” he finished, face red at the memory. 

Bucky found himself mildly conflicted. On the one hand, it sounded like this Darcy girl was an absolute riot of a human and he wouldn’t mind Steve bringing someone like that around, but on the other, it _did_ sound like she was flirting with Steve, and he didn’t really like the idea of some unknown quantity riling him up the way Bucky liked to do. “You know I’ll help ya reinstall it. I can’t help with the money for replacing it, but I can do that much,” he said, sidestepping the subject entirely.

“Thanks, Bucky,” Steve said, looking appreciative and much less flustered. 

“No problem, pal,” he said, and pulled at his friend’s arm till he got out of the bed, “Now let’s go get you that non-negotiable breakfast.”

Bucky had been learning how to make coffee, because the more he sat around in the physical plane, the more he realized how unbearable it was to do nothing in it to make time pass faster. (Over There, time didn’t so much pass as drift in lazy circles through the air. He never felt the weight of it, like a heavy blanket draped over his shoulders, the way he did here.) After proving he could make it right three times in a row, Steve had finally consented to letting him make it for him, so he got out the little brown bag of locally roasted beans and the scale for dosing while Steve made his breakfast with the tired, automatic movements of the half-conscious. In hindsight, Bucky was mildly impressed that he’d gotten more than a sentence out of Steve before the requisite cup of coffee.

Coffee ground and steeping in the french press, there wasn’t much for him to do while Steve wiggled a spatula half-heartedly around in the frying pan. Well. There was one thing he could do, and maybe it’d speed up the process a little. It had seemed to work fairly well for the lady in the movie. He thought about it for a bit, walked to the hallway to step over There and back with a different outfit more fitting for the occasion. Thankfully, his friend was only just finishing up his omelette, so he still had time to get himself situated.

Steve flipped the omelette onto his plate with a quiet, satisfied grunt, left the pan on the stove to cool, and turned around. His eyes widened and he fumbled with his plate a little when he saw Bucky, lounging horizontally on top of the table, as though enacting a performance art centerpiece. He was in an old-fashioned red silk smoking jacket that was draped in such a way to gape open at the top, exposing his bare chest to what Bucky felt was its best advantage. He had his head tilted insouciantly back, curls falling over his hooded eyes as he met Steve’s heated expression. 

Steve’s eyes ran slowly across him, as though savoring the effort he’d put into the tableau, and he preened, arching a little more at the attention. “Christ,” whispered Steve, clearly a prayer rather than a swear, as he continued to flick his gaze across Bucky, as though hoping to memorize him. “Christ, I wanna draw you so bad.”

Bucky smirked and bent one of his legs slowly, allowing the slit at the front of the smooth fabric to expose more of his thigh. “Sure there’s not something else you’d rather we do together, Stevie?”

Steve’s mouth dropped open a little and his eyes darkened more. His hand moved as if to reach out to touch, but then he looked down at his plate as though suddenly reminded that things other than Bucky existed. He took a steadying breath, and shook his head. “Buck, you know I gotta eat and all that. Non-negotiable, even for me. And then we gotta talk first. Wouldja stop makin’ this harder on me to do? It’s not like I wanna keep waiting, Jesus, look at you,” he said, though he was deliberately avoiding having to look at him, busying himself instead with pouring his coffee. “But I gotta be responsible about this. I’m not a fuckin’ teenager, I got no excuse to make stupid mistakes.”

It took a lot of concerted effort not to feel rejected, even though he’d sort of expected it. Steve _had_ warned him when they were upstairs, after all. It’s just hard when you put yourself on display like that not to feel even more vulnerable and kind of stupid for doing it in the first place. Bucky hurriedly got off the table and straightened his smoking jacket, cinching the belt tight so it lay as it was meant to. This time when Steve turned to sit with his food and coffee in hand, it was to see Bucky sitting in a chair with red ears, a little sheepish. 

“Sorry,” he said, shrugging awkwardly, twisting his hands together under the table where they couldn’t be seen. He didn’t try to take a bite of Steve’s food, figuring he’d already overstepped enough today.

Steve took a few bites and swallowed his meds with a gulp of coffee, lips pursed in thought. “You don’t gotta be sorry. It was—any other day after we’ve talked, Buck, that woulda been—you looked like art, like an old pinup, I mean. You’re pushing all my buttons here, pal. I’m not mad or nothin’, but I did say non-negotiable.”

Bucky frowned. “So it’s similar. To when we were kissing, an’ I didn’t listen that first time you told me to hang on. It’s like a fence. I should—guard your boundaries better, Steve. I will, I promise,” he said, with a sudden strike of understanding. 

Steve grinned at Bucky and held out a hand. He untwisted his hands and slipped one into Steve’s, a little tentative, now that he realized quite how gracious Steve had been being about the invasions Bucky had unintentionally committed beyond his boundary lines. He squeezed it once, comforting, and then kept holding on as he finished the rest of his omelette and coffee. They sat there, the earlier tension not quite gone but morphed now, into a peaceful kind of buzz between their hands as he ate, a quiet anticipation. 

About ten minutes later, he put his dishes away. Bucky stayed sitting, because moving any closer to Steve was a little too much to handle when he wasn’t allowed to touch him yet. It seemed like it was a little difficult for Steve too, though, since his hand kept twitching in the way it seemed to when he wanted to reach out or to draw. 

“So,” he began, and then stalled, at a loss.

Bucky laughed at the both of them. “Gods, we’re the worst at this.”

Steve chuckled and tilted his hand back and forth, as if to say _Maybe just a little, huh?_ He sat up straighter. “Okay. So I asked you to think some more about this—I know all this waiting may be a bit crazy to ya, but this is our home, and it’s gonna be that way for as long as I’m alive, so it’s important that this doesn’t go sour on us. And—you’re one o’ my best friends, Buck. That’s reason enough to step a little tender.”

“But you _do_ want to have sex with me,” Bucky clarified, because as much as his heart had soared at Steve saying the words ‘ _our home’_ , he wanted to be entirely sure of this point. 

“Yeah, Bucky,” Steve said with a funny twist to his mouth. “I do want to have sex with you.”

“Good!” he said cheerfully. “Me too.”

“Is that…all you decided you wanted, when you thought about it more?” his friend asked, shifting to a different sitting position and looking out the kitchen window past Bucky. Bucky looked out the window too, thinking there was a pretty bird, but it must have already flown past. 

He lowered his eyebrows, a little confused. What did that mean, all he wanted? He knew he didn’t want Steve to go out and have sex with other people, and he definitely wanted to have sex with Steve. He wanted for them to keep being friends and depending on each other the way they did, sharing their lives and getting to know Steve’s favorite people. They were already partners in rebuilding their home together, which to Bucky was as beautiful a gift as he could be given. The only thing they weren’t doing that he wanted to do was sex. 

“Well…yeah. And this way you don’t need to go out and have sex with strangers, because you can do it here with me instead,” Bucky said, feeling very positively about the entire concept.

Steve was still looking out the window over his shoulder, and nodded, his jaw clenching. “Right,” he agreed, a little tonelessly. “Right. Uh, yeah, Buck. That’s real swell of you.”

He laughed a little, moving to lean his hip on the table next to Steve's chair. “It’s not like it’s a _hardship_. I’ve been thinking about it since that first night you kissed me. Is it…do you need ta wait and think some more? It’s okay if you do,” he offered, hoping very much that the time for waiting had finally passed.

He brushed Steve’s bangs back tentatively, and Steve finally tilted his head back to meet his gaze, smile warming the brief cold distance that had stolen across his face. “You’re sweet. But I think we’ve both had enough of holding back.”

Bucky bared his teeth in a grin and moved his hand to cup the back of Steve’s neck. “Fuck yes, we have.” He pulled him up for a short, hard kiss and then started tugging him along. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Oh, right now?” Steve said with wide eyes, though he was following along easily. “Are you sure? I dunno, I think I need ta finish the kitchen cabinets today.”

He rolled his eyes, overcome with somehow an equal amount of fondness and annoyance at how much of a little shit Steve always was. _It’s like it’s compulsive_. “I’m sure they won’t mind waitin’ another day. Me? I’m not so patient.”

“Well. I _do_ have a real bed now. Might be nice to break it in,” he smirked, as they separated to mount the stairs. Bucky used the opportunity to mess Steve’s hair up and Steve turned it into a race to the top, because they were both children. He won, because Bucky was mostly interested in trying to get to his hair again and because of a lethal use of his sharp elbows. 

They stumbled into the master bedroom, a little out of breath and chuckling at themselves, knocking their shoulders and hips together playfully. Steve sprawled back against the bedspread and reeled Bucky to him by the ends of his smoking jacket’s belt. He fell willingly into the bed with him and rolled to press their bodies closer together. He felt giddy, knowing he was allowed to do this now, knowing that Steve didn’t want to stop or leave him anymore. 

The pads of Steve’s work-roughened fingers brushed along his nose and he closed his eyes, smiling softly. “Ya know, I really do like this outfit,” Steve said, tugging at a lapel. A second later he felt him press a close-mouthed kiss to the dip of his collarbone, a chaste, sweet action. For some reason Bucky could not fathom, it struck a mad spark through him, raising the hairs on his arms. His eyes flew open and he let out a choked groan. 

Steve glanced up at him curiously. “Huh, you like that spot,” he said, and Bucky saw he was about to kiss it again, but he couldn’t wait one more second to have that mouth on his, so he ducked down and claimed it. A little overeager, his teeth knocked hard against Steve’s, who grunted. “Sorry,” he whispered into his mouth, still unwilling to part with it.

Steve’s head shook against his in impatient disagreement, and grasped him by the jaw gently. “Like this,” he mumbled, tilting Bucky’s head and brushing their mouths just slightly together, hesitant brushstrokes on a fresh canvas. 

The barely-there sensation made his lips tingle like his nerves were all waking up at once, all yearning for more touch, but Bucky was taking Steve’s lead on this. He was the one who had done this before, who knew what he was doing. He trusted him to teach him well. 

And, _oh_ , the way he grabbed Bucky’s shoulders, firm and grounding, while those kisses stayed lighter than air, made for a delicious contrast. Steve let his hands do as they liked while he kept his kisses under a tight rein of control, and apparently what his hands wanted was to grab and rub at every muscle Bucky had. One hand dipped beneath the silk of his jacket to spread across his left pec, squeezing, and then teased around his nipple. Bucky moaned at the shocks of sensation that sent from his toes to the roots of his hair, and threw his head back in a gasp. 

“Steve, Stevie, please,” he grumbled finally, “C’mon, kiss me proper, will ya?”

Steve smirked, but complied. He grabbed him by the hair and let their mouths crash together, let their shared impulse to sink into each other take over. Bucky couldn’t hold back a purr of satisfaction at the way their bodies aligned—hands now keen to clutch at backs, thighs, anything to keep them pressed as close together as they could be. He felt his dick begin to press against Steve’s hip through the silky fabric of his smoking jacket, and groaned into his mouth when Steve reached down to rub against it. 

“ _Hey_ , there, Bucky,” he said, breaking away to grin goofily down at where his hand was. Bucky huffed, but could not stop his hips from jerking forward each time Steve rubbed a firm hand over it.

“Shit, that feels so good,” he gasped, instead of the very droll and snarky thing he meant to say.

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, pal. Just wait till there’s no clothes in the way. That’ll rev your engine for sure.”

He thought Steve was way too put together still, when he felt like he was about to fly apart just from this. “Clothes, what a terrible invention,” Bucky said, and tugged Steve’s shirt bodily up and over his head, where the neckline promptly got stuck under his sharp chin. 

“Buck!” he protested. Making many disgruntled noises, he wriggled and then freed himself, revealing hair that looked like an electrocuted cockatoo. Bucky stopped trying not to laugh—Steve’s mouth looked good when he pouted, anyway. When he mentioned this to him, he only huffed and worked to remove his jeans before Bucky could (these were his staining jeans, covered in black, grey, and brown streaks where he wiped his hands or brushed up against a still-drying surface). 

Steve rolled him over on his back to straddle his hips. The position rocked him against his dick and Bucky made a noise like he’d been gut punched, eyes nearly crossing at the warm weight pressing over his hard dick. Deft hands pushed the robe off his shoulders to pool at his waist, adjusting to untie his belt. Steve unwrapped him like a present till he lay naked beneath him, burgundy silk splayed around him and curls in disarray against the bedspread. 

Steve stared down at him for so long that a nervous flutter started in Bucky’s stomach. He had never once considered his own appearance much beyond choosing it so long ago and deciding what clothes to wear, and it just now occurred to him that in order for Steve to continue wanting to have sex with him, he would have to like what he saw. It was disconcerting to feel so connected, suddenly, so defined by how he looked. What if Steve… “ _What?_ ” Bucky snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You weren’t wearing anything under that—this whole time,” Steve breathed, as though he was recoloring all his memories with that fact. 

Bucky felt the tips of his ears heat up. “No. Obviously,” he said, gesturing to his naked body to reiterate the point, as if Steve had taken his eyes off it to speak (he hadn’t).

Bucky let Steve pull his hands gently out of their defensive posture to twine them with his. He finally met his gaze and was shocked at the depth of the soft heat there, like twin forges burning blue-hot just for him. “You’re gorgeous. Completely stunning, Buck. I would pay good money to stare at you like that for hours. What do you wanna do?”

Bucky used their joined hands to press their bodies completely against one another—it felt like every part of him was singing at the skin contact. He kissed the side of Steve’s head. “I don’t know. I want you to show me what you like. I wanna figure out what I like. Anything goes, but this time you know more’n me, Rogers.”

“Don’t call me Rogers in bed. It’s weird, _Barnes_.”

“Point taken,” he said, and then used his thighs to flip them over, noting the way Steve’s eyes glazed a little when he did. “Lemme look at you, Stevie.”

 _Fuck, he’s something else_ , thought Bucky, taking in the way a shiver went along the smooth skin of his abdomen when Bucky pressed his thumbs up along his hipbone. He was so responsive to the littlest touch—experimentally, he nosed gently at one of the moles that speckled him in a sparse spread of constellations, and Steve sucked in a sharp breath. 

He did the same with the furrows between each rib, pausing to lick at his nipples. Steve released a deep groan and his skin jumped as if ticklish. There was a light pink scar—almost white with age—over his heart, and Bucky left a kiss there too, receiving a tight hand in his hair for his efforts. Another hot rush of sparking pleasure went through him when Steve tugged at his hair to move him back, and when he met his eyes, Bucky was panting lightly. 

“Goddamn, your mouth,” Steve breathes, and drags him back into a heavy, drugging kiss. Without any fabric to come between them, he can feel Steve is just as hard as him, and they grind against one another, trying to find a rhythm that works best—but fuck, it kind of all works for Bucky. He could go crazy just from the look in Steve’s eyes. 

Steve lead him through it, directing him to “try it with your wrist, it’ll feel good” and “touch me here, go like _this_ ” and it’s all ten thousand times more intense than it was when he tried this alone in the shower. It’s barely ten in the morning and the sun was streaming through the leaves outside the window, forming a shifting dappling pattern across their bodies, but the cloak of warmth that covered them made it seem like the witching hour. 

He’s honestly impressed with himself that he’s holding out this long when Steve said, “Lemme—I think you’ll like this, Bucky, lemme show you something.”

He pushed him on his back and scooted down so he was kneeling with his face close enough to Bucky’s leaking dick to kiss it (which he did) before Bucky realized he definitely knew what this was. “Oh, a blowjob!” Bucky said, and hated himself immediately after. 

Apparently sex meant he had no filter and zero brain cells, _what the shit, Barnes_. 

Steve pushed his face into the crease of his thigh to laugh, which was not only rude, but also apparently that spot was real sensitive and wow, fuck, that felt _good_. He made an embarrassing noise when Steve turned to suck at the head, winking at him when he saw him watching. It was good, it was so good, and the only flaw was that when Steve was licking his way up and around his dick, he couldn’t also be kissing him. Bucky didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he let them trace the silk fabric beneath him. 

There was a furrow in Steve’s brow that he only got when he was concentrating, and having all that fierce energy focused on bringing him pleasure sent a pulsing thrill of its own. He sank deeper into everything his body was feeling, allowing it to rush through him like an electric current. Steve twisted his wrist and his tongue at the same time, and Bucky arched back, seeing stars and feeling fireworks.

He heard a few _eeee-POP-pop-fizzle_ noises over his head and felt several light taps across his face, like the ghost of mice feet. 

“Holy shit,” whispered Steve, sounding a little awed. 

Bucky peeked one eye open, the aftershocks of his orgasm still sparking through him. About three feet above them, a miniature fireworks display was just fading from view, leaving their telltale smoke echoes and a few tiny charcoal caps pattering over them and the bedspread. Bucky smiled hazily up at the ceiling, until he heard Steve say, much louder, “Holy _shit_.”

“Wha?” he murmured, and looked over to where Steve was using his smoking jacket to attempt to smother a tiny flame that had sparked to life on one of his pillows. “Oh.”

He reached out a hand to still his friend and scooped the little fire into his palm, the way you might collect a newborn kitten. “Shhh,” he said at it, nonsensically, still not fully with it. It flickered lower but did not go out. He smiled over at Steve, who was still holding the silk jacket in midair. “It’s okay. No need to panic, Stevie. It’s just a lil guy.”

Steve stared at him while he cradled the tiny fire in his hand, letting it play with his fingers. They were both still naked as jaybirds. He found that really funny. “You’re—no—you almost, you almost set my bed on fire. _Jesus_ , you’re high maintenance,” he said, and then fell against the headboard laughing.

Bucky shrugged and glanced down at his little friend. Normally he would just put it out, but he felt strangely fond of it, so he lifted it to his mouth and swallowed it. It tasted like a fizzy fruit drink. He didn’t think Steve saw it or he would surely have reacted. Watching him laugh felt like the fire had tasted, and it reminded Bucky that usually in sex, both partners were meant to enjoy themselves. 

“Oh, Steve, Stevie, I’m sorry, you didn’t get to have your moment cause I set the fuckin’ bed on fire like a moron. You made me feel so amazing, too—how’d you do that twisty thing, it felt great! Is sex always this great? No wonder humans are always trying to get some. Uh—What I mean is, can I try and make you feel good now, too?”

Steve tossed the slightly-smoking pillow into the corner of the room and rearranged the quilt at the end of the bed so it covered them both, tugging Bucky down to curl up next to him. “Yes, you set my pillow on fire like a wonderful, magical moron when you came. But Buck, I dunno what room you were in, but I was having _just_ as much fun as you were. Plus, I like making sure my partner has a good time; that makes me feel good too. It doesn’t always have to be about the endgame, ya know?”

Bucky thought about it and nodded. “Alright, but—”

“Now shaddup and put your arms around me. It’s nap time. Then you’re helping me put the cabinets up.”

Steve couldn’t see it because he was facing away, but Bucky felt his entire face turn red. _Oh, blowjobs, sure, no problem, but tell me to cuddle you and apparently I fall apart_ , he thought sardonically. Meekly and with great care, he wrapped his arms around Steve.

———————————————————————————

So it became a new habit—having sex with Bucky. Hell, he could have worse vices. Ma would certainly approve (although Natasha might stab some walls and/or some Steves). Bucky was so eager it was flattering, and so honest in his desire that Steve couldn’t help but find everything he tried unbearably sexy. More than that—worse than that, corrected the part of Steve that had any self-preservation left—he was starting to find even Bucky’s most annoying traits endearing, inside and outside the bedroom. 

Case in point: taking the first bite of Steve’s food. Now that he wasn’t trying to be sneaky about it, it began to feel less like trolling and more, God help him, like flirting. One day he made some flautas, and added an extra one to his plate without thought. He batted Bucky’s questing fork away at first so he could put the sauce and cheese on top, and then nudged the extra one towards him with an encouraging nod. He kept Steve’s gaze when he took a bite, half challenge and all heat, but as always, he closed his eyes to savor the taste.

There was something viscerally pleasing about watching Bucky eat food he made for them, seeing the light flush that pinked his cheeks, the thoughtful cast his demeanor took as he tried to name each dimension of flavor. Steve asked him to describe it sometimes, and the answers were always fascinating. He was telling Wanda about it yesterday when they met for lunch: “It’s like if a man who’s been blind since birth could see all o’ sudden, an’ he describes shapes with sounds instead. I’m not much for poetry, but. Uh, anyway, enough about me.”

Wanda wanted to come over and officially meet Bucky soon—she promised to bring Sam along, as he’d been coming over only rarely to Steve’s since the day he got spooked. He had an idea she’d have to bribe him with her homemade caramel to convince him, since all Steve’s usual methods (asking genuinely, bribing him with good beer, looking very sad) had been working much less often. 

“What’s the verdict?” Steve asked Bucky, digging into his own flautas with a cheeriness borne of finally finishing most the main rooms of the house. He was leaning into the good parts of this situation, so he decided to revel in the glow of regularly having good sex with a guy he liked. (He just had to ignore the reminders that Bucky didn’t like him that way and maybe never would. The sex was good. Focus on that.)

Bucky gave him a close-mouthed smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling just a bit. Steve swallowed too fast at the _thump_ his heart gave, coughed, took a gulp of water. “Real good, Steve, thanks.”

“Oh, I mean—you’re welcome. But what does it taste like? To you?”

This time when he smiled, his dimples made an appearance. Steve was glad he had nothing to choke on, because those dimples were lethal. “When your ma is cooking somethin’ amazing, and you tryna sneak a taste but she catches you and raps your knuckles with the spoon. It smarts, right, but you lick your knuckles to get a taste the spoon left, and it’s all worth it. Smoke and tomatoes and pain, a little woodsy. Plus, that nice gouda ya got at the market last week. You should get more o’ that.”

“You’re a wonder, pal,” Steve said, only half-joking. “Hey, Wanda’n Sam wanna meetcha. Thursday, 5 o’clock, okay?”

He leaned back in the chair so it was balanced on its back two legs, which he knew annoyed Steve. “I’ll see if I can squeeze them into my busy schedule o’ socializin’ with the rabbits in the yard,” he said breezily. 

Steve put his foot on the lip of Bucky’s chair and pressed it back down on all four legs, giving Bucky as stern a look as he could. “Stop that. I got these from a friend. Ya know it ruins the balance over time.”

Bucky only winked and grabbed hold of his sock-clad foot to bring it into his lap. The hairs on leg prickled to attention at the thrill of Bucky’s thumb sweeping across his ankle bone.

Yeah. Steve was having some trouble staying mad at his roommate for anything, these days. 

He met with Natasha at Georgina’s on Wednesday, because he knew this would go over better in person than in text. Darcy was there, with her customary upside-down name tag, and at this point he felt almost fond when she popped up from behind the counter to greet them. Steve suspected that she had just been sitting on the floor.

“Aww, yisss, it’s tiny hunk! How ya holding up, Steve? And oh, who’s _this,_ ” she said, and leaned over the counter provocatively to offer her hand to Natasha, the way a court lady might. “ _Enchanté_ 1,” she purred, and Steve had to laugh.

Natasha lit up, probably overjoyed to meet someone else with her weird sense of humor, and bowed regally to give the offered hand a kiss. Emerging from the back room, Darcy’s supervisor set a pile of cups down on the counter, snorted at the lot of them, and left again. “ _Non, tout le plaisir était pour moi_ 2,” she replied, smirking, and gave Darcy an obvious once-over. 

She straightened only to dramatically swoon into the cup tower. “ _Mon pauvre cœur_ 3.”

Natasha grinned and nudged Steve. “How come you didn’t bring me here sooner? This place is great.”

Steve just sighed, mouth tilting up despite himself when Darcy pointed meaningfully at him. He preemptively put a dollar in the tip jar. “I’ll have a small coffee, please, no cream, thank you.”

Natasha ordered a cardamom latte, tipped five dollars, and let Steve pay for her drink. He knew she was doing it so the next time they went to her favorite expensive sushi place, he would let her pay for his, but he was a lot less prickly about it now than he used to be. Sam would probably interject that that was saying something.

“So,” she said, and met his eyes, assessing, over the rim of her cup as she took a sip. “What’d you do?”

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Steve said, reflexively defensive. _So much for being less prickly_ , he thought wryly. 

“Well, you didn’t have a problem with me coming over after you told me Bucky was a domovoi. We even threw knives at each other. But this whole past week, it’s been ‘Oh no, Nat, my entryway is a mess’ or ‘I’m already in your area, let me meet you at yours’. I mean, it’s fine. I know I’ve been kind of riding you about going out more. But—I don’t think I did anything to upset you. Right?” she asked, an edge of hesitation creeping along her tone.

“Nat, no. I’m not mad at you. I know you want the best for me. That’s. Why I needed to talk to you about this in person,” he said, and fiddled with his coffee mug.

Natasha set her cup down with wide eyes. “Oh my god. Steve. You had sex with Bucky?!”

“I didn’t say that!” 

“You didn’t need to, look at your face! Jesus,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yes, alright. Yes, we’re having sex. It was a mutual decision and we’re both enjoying ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he insisted. Outside of his head, it sounded much too like he was trying to convince himself as well as his overprotective friend. 

“Having sex, as in, you had sex once and instead of immediately calling me, your much wiser friend who is always right, you decided to continue to have sex with the eternal creature who occupies your home and has the ability to make your life utterly miserable if you make him mad? Is that what you are telling me, Steven Grant?” Natasha ranted. Over her shoulder, Steve caught Darcy munching on an almond croissant and watching their exchange with wide, avid eyes.

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

She dropped her head to rest on the table and rolled it from side to side, her red hair falling a little out of the composed french twist she had it in from work. “Steeeeeeeeeeeeve,” she groaned. “Why are you this way.”

She couldn’t see him, but he shrugged again anyway. Nat knew him well enough by now, he figured. _You can lead a Steve to water,_ his Ma used to say, proudly, _but you can’t make him drink_. He patted her on the shoulder awkwardly. She gave another heavy sigh to the table and straightened, wiping her forehead and checking for crumbs. 

“Okay,” Natasha said firmly, clearly forcing herself to switch mental tracks. “So now that you’re doing it, it’s obviously too late to talk you out of it. Let’s make it work for you instead. How sure are you that he doesn’t like you?” 

He felt a surge of fondness for Natasha, for her mind and heart and the way she ruthlessly worked every angle to help those she loved, no matter what her personal opinion was. It was part of what made her such a successful lawyer, but it was also what made her a wonderful friend. He smiled slightly, though his heart ached at the mention of Bucky. 

“I didn’t go into this impulsively—okay, not _that_ impulsively,” he amended at her raised eyebrow. “I asked him why he wanted to try that with me. I made him think it over for a few days. We even had another talk about it before we did anything. So I kinda got a good idea of what he was wantin’ outta the whole thing. It’s just because he’s curious about what his body can, uh, feel now, and he trusts me and finds me, y’know, attractive enough.”

It was hard not to flush at the memories playing through his head of their most recent time together. Bucky’s hand sliding up his chest to pull Steve back against him and whispering sweet filth in his ear about how good he felt against him—the surprised joy that overtook him when Steve showed him how to finger himself. He shook his head to clear it. _You’re in public, Rogers, get your shit together._

Natasha gave him a far too knowing look. “I have a feeling he finds you more than attractive enough, if you tempted him into trying at all. I didn’t have a domovoi myself growing up, because my parents didn’t hold with ‘that old-fashioned hokey nonsense’,” she said, using air quotes, “But I spent summers in Russia with Babushka, and she had one. They were very fond of each other, as far as you could be with a creature that private, and he was kind to me. She told me all the old tales, and when she passed, I found everything else I could. I’m telling you this so you understand: Steve, out of all the stories about domovye, there are maybe one or two where they willingly appear in human form for anyone. And there are none at all where they have sex with any humans.”

She paused to let that sink in before continuing, “I don’t know if Bucky can love you like a human could, but I also don’t know that he _can’t_. I’d be surprised if he knew, either. All I can say for sure is what you already have is unique and extraordinary. And if anyone can make the weird hobgoblin in their house fall in love with them, it’d be you. With my guidance, of course,” she said, and flipped her hair.

“Right. Of course,” he deadpanned. He clasped her hand in his over the table. “Thank you, Nat. I don’t think this thing with me and Bucky is goin’ anywhere, but. He’s special. It means a lot to me, you seeing that.” 

Natasha squeezed his hand. “You’re too much, all the time, Steve. It’s one of your best faults.”

Darcy, apparently having waited as long as she could hold herself back, came over with a slice of apple crumb cake and held her lighter up next to it like a candle. “Congrats on the sex, you absolute unit!!” she cheered.

Steve huffed a little, but if he was being honest, even Darcy was endearing today. “Thanks, Darce.”

Natasha high-fived her on their way out. Steve pretended not to notice Darcy winking and giving her a scrap of paper just large enough to contain, say, a phone number. 

That night he introduced Bucky to the joys (and occasional pitfalls) of table sex. He set Steve’s new kitchen curtains on fire, but then set to work distracting him by demonstrating everything he’d learned about sucking dick. (He was an avid student.) 

When 5 o’clock the next day rolled around, they were just finishing the flooring in the second bedroom. Steve was rubbing at his back—it was kind of murder to be bending over all day, especially after fucking on the table the night before. Bucky turned his head to the front-facing wall like a bloodhound scenting a trail. “They’re here. Oh, and they brought no-bakes!” 

He tromped down the stairs, Steve following at a more sedate pace. Was he deliberately walking behind Bucky to watch the way his ass kinda bounced when he went down the stairs? Absolutely, he was. “How d’you even know about no-bakes? I haven’t given you any yet.”

“I don’t. But they were talking about them when they crossed the boundary line and Sam seemed excited, so they must be good,” he said, and opened the door eagerly to invite them (and their unbaked goods) inside.

“Hey, how you doing, Steve?” Sam said, taking off his shoes on the new entry rug Ma had brought last time she was over, because he was raised right. 

Steve grinned and gave him a hug. “Good, man. Thanks for coming.”

Wanda waved shyly at Bucky and clutched the tupperware of sweets to her chest. He waved too, rocking forwards and back on his feet as though stopping himself bodily from taking them from her. Steve gave Bucky the side eye while he hugged Wanda and she handed him the container. “It is, I found this recipe on the internet. I hope it is good because it was easy to make.”

Steve opened it. “Looks good, Wanda. Thanks. Real nice of ya. C’mon in, the kitchen’s all done. Finished it last week.”

“Hey, you have a real table now! I remember when you made this,” he said, smoothing a hand along the polished wood fondly. 

“Oh, yeah, we’ve really enjoyed that table,” Bucky said. Steve kicked the back of his calf as he walked by to get a round of beers from the fridge. 

Wanda settled herself at the chair facing the window and smiled around the room, happy to be surrounded by friends. Steve sat next to her and she accepted the offered bottle. Sam claimed the other seat next to him; he noticed Bucky make a grumpy face at Sam’s back before sitting across from Steve. Sam took a long draught of his beer and gave a satisfied sigh before glancing around the room, noting the changes. “Looks like you got a lot done! I’m liking the cabinets, man. Seems like it fits in with the older stuff but a little modern, too.”

“It’s the paint Ma picked, I think. Ah, thank you. Bucky helped me put ‘em up.”

“Sure did,” he said with a rakish grin, and shifted slightly in his chair. A second later, Steve felt a nudge to his foot. He squinted at Bucky. _There’s no way he’s trying to play footsie with me now, right? How would he even know about footsie?_

Wanda leaned towards Bucky, curiosity overcoming her shyness. “Bucky—it is Bucky and not James, yes?” she asked.

Bucky nodded. Steve felt another nudge to his feet. He moved them back slightly. Wanda went on, “Steve has told me some of your story, I hope that is okay. Would you—worry answering some questions?”

“Mind,” Sam provided and she nodded in thanks. Bucky’s foot trapped his when he tried to move it back further.

“Nah, no problem. I know you helped Steve a lot earlier on. Whatcha got in mind?” Bucky replied generously, as if he wasn’t currently batting Steve’s left foot away from its quest to free his right foot. When Wanda turned to say something to Sam, Bucky sent a sly wink at him. Steve felt his eyes glazing over slightly as he focused on the battle at his feet. Every now and then, he would remember to tune in to the conversation, but he felt his competitive nature take over any time his roommate looked even slightly smug. 

He got his right foot free but almost knocked his knee up into the table for his trouble. “—really shouldn’t have such a stigma in America, considering—” Wanda was saying.

 _Shit, look at that face, he’s totally got a plan,_ thought Steve, and made a preemptive strike with his right foot before Bucky’s could fully retreat. “—quote from, what’s that Greek lady’s name, the one who—” Sam was saying. He tried to trap a foot but his socks made it too easy to slip out from under.

Bucky grinned and said something to Sam—how was he paying attention to the conversation so well? “—Hypatia, right? Read about her a while ago. Cool lady,” he said, trailing the ball of his foot slowly up the side of Steve’s right calf.

Wanda was responding with a little spark of mischief in her eyes—probably a joke. Steve made himself chuckle, but he wasn’t sure if it came out normally because he was trying to get a hold of Bucky’s ankle before his foot made it any higher up his leg. 

“—wonder about the way physical bodies are different in—” Wanda’s voice. He managed to hook his left foot over Bucky’s ankle but the angle was too weird to make for good leverage, so he gave up on that. His toes were making their inexorable way up Steve’s leg—they were at his lower thigh now and it was—hard to focus on much else. Bucky didn’t even look like he was sitting low in his chair; how were his legs this long? 

Sam leaned forward, emphasizing a point with his beer bottle. “—don’t get, though, is how we wouldn’t have heard—” Steve scooted all the way back in his chair and Bucky’s feet retreated. Some part of him felt triumphant, and some other parts were distinctly disappointed. Besides, winning this way felt too easy. 

“—thought about that much since you moved here, Steve?” Wanda asked, and Steve started a little, blinking for what felt like the first time in an hour. 

“Oh,” he said, and cleared his throat to stall. Bucky’s mouth ticked up at the side, and he wanted with equal fervor to 

  1. stick his tongue out at him like a third grader, and
  2. lick that mouth open till it gasped his name.



Shoot. What had they been talking about? A Greek lady? He smiled sheepishly at Wanda and gave the safest answer he could think of. “Uh, I’m not sure.”

“That is fine. I would be surprised if you had. Thinking about the reality planes is more of a ‘Wanda’ activity, anyway,” she said, and laughed lightly. 

Bucky tipped his chair back briefly, and then let it fall back to all fours with a quiet _thud_. Steve narrowed his eyes at him. He affected an innocent look and did it again. By the third time he did it, Steve had lost track of the conversation once more in favor of slowly sinking down in his chair so he could use more of his legs.

Bucky smirked and affected a yawn, tilting his chair fully on its back two legs. While Sam asked Wanda something, Steve reached his left foot on the chair in the space by Bucky’s hip. Steve pushed down and it wobbled forward but stayed tilted, propped up firmly by his friend’s too-long legs. 

“Hmph,” he grumbled, now not even trying to follow who was talking because he _had to win_. He scooted a little further down in his chair. His right foot joined the other on the chair, sliding into the space between Bucky’s legs, and his ears turned bright red. Steve met his eyes, raised his eyebrows in challenge, and pushed down hard with both feet, using his pelvis for leverage. Simultaneously, Bucky was responding to his challenge by pushing the chair further back with his feet.

This resulted in Bucky’s chair toppling completely over, crashing back with Bucky still in it, limbs akimbo. Steve had scooted way too far down in his chair and was pulled forward by the other’s momentum till he slipped totally under the table on his back and nearly brained himself on the edge of his seat.

For a few beats there was complete silence, other than the muffled groans Steve and Bucky let out. Then, from above them, Sam and Wanda began exclaiming—ugh, lots of things he couldn’t keep track of, his head hurt. _God, this is embarrassing,_ he thought, _I’m so glad Natasha wasn’t here to rag me into eternity_.

Wanda’s face appeared above him along with her hand as she helped him out from under the table. “Oh my god! Steve, Steve, you are okay? You are hurt?” she asked, patting his hair back into shape like a concerned mother.

“Uh,” he coughed. “Nah. Mostly just hurt my pride.”

Sam, seeing he was unharmed, allowed himself to die laughing, curling over and knocking his head a few times on the table. “You…idiot!” he yelled between laughs. “Jesus! How did that…even happen?”

Wanda joined in, chuckling as she helped Bucky stand and right his chair. “It is very strange, yes? Funny.”

“Seriously, dude. How did you both fail so bad?” Sam asked.

Steve rubbed a hand over his face. _This is what your decisions have wrought, Steven Grant_ , said a voice in his head that sounded like his Ma. 

He was trying to think of literally any other way to explain what had just happened when Bucky said, “We were playing footsie and Steve was being a little shit about it.”

“ _I_ was being a little shit—?” he protested.

“Whoa whoa whoa wait wait waaait just a hot damn second. This whole time. While we were also here. Having a full ass adult conversation with you. You two were playing footsie like children from the fifties??” Sam exclaimed.

Wanda looked confused. “I am sorry, what is footsie? Why would it cause them to fall down?”

Sam turned to her, eager to have someone to share this experience with. “It’s the most juvenile way to flirt that exists. It’s where people touch each other with their feet under a table because they’re not old enough to touch where adults might see them. Except _these_ assholes,” he said, gesturing. Bucky waved and Steve just sighed. “Are full grown actual literal adults and have _no excuse_ for their behavior.”

Wanda only looked slightly less confused. Bucky shrugged. “I never got to play footsie before. It always looked kinda fun when the kids were doin’ it. None of ‘em fell over, though,” he said, and seemed almost proud. 

Steve leaned against the chair but did not sit in it. “Seems like they knew better.”

“Nah. They were definitely doing it wrong, I think.”

He tried not to blush at that, because it was a stupid thing to blush about and he knew Sam could already tell something was up. “Ah, anyone wanna see the living room? I only gotta finish the fireplace in there, so we’ve got real places to sit.”

While they were settling, he called for some Vietnamese takeout, hoping if people were busy eating, they wouldn’t be able to grill him about Bucky.

No such luck. Sam didn’t even wait for his pho to arrive to point back and forth between Steve and Bucky. “So, this a new thing or an old thing you didn’t wanna talk about?”

“How ‘bout a new thing I don’t wanna talk about?” he said, rushing to close the subject so he wouldn’t have to hear Bucky cheerfully tell his friends how the sex was fun, but that was all he wanted from Steve.

Bucky looked a little hurt, actually, his mouth hanging open like he had stopped mid-word and his brow furrowed. Sam raised his eyebrows but lifted his hands to indicate he would back off the subject. 

“You are in a relationship?” Wanda asked, not taking the hint. “How exciting! Bucky, how did you, ah…find, discover? your feelings for Steve?”

He took a deep breath in and fuck, Steve really didn’t want to hear this. “Well, I—”

Steve stood up from the couch and hooked a thumb behind him. “That’s the, gotta go wait for the, hah, delivery guy,” he said, and power walked to go sit on the front porch. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t quite fall yet so he didn’t need a coat to sit outside. There were a few squirrels foraging on the overgrown front lawn he had yet to touch, and the moon was a waxing gibbous, the only thing in the sky bright enough to make it through New York’s light pollution. He thought about what Bucky could be saying to his friends right now, and felt like a prize idiot for running. There was no point to it, he knew that. There was never a point to running. Whatever you feared would catch up to you, and it’d be twice as scary than if you had just stood your ground. Steve Rogers didn’t run. Not for long. Not for this.

He sent a last glance up at the moon, hanging heavy and implacable against the dim blue backdrop of twilight, and turned to go back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, guys, Steve just needs a little of this processing time before he gets his shit together in Ch 6 and then Bucky will HAVE HIS MAN \o/ Just two more days till it happens.  
> 1\. "Enchanted." Back  
>   
> 2\. "No, the pleasure is all mine." Back  
>   
> 3\. "My poor heart." Back  
> 


	6. Restoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their crooked little house is (mostly) finished. Time for a housewarming party!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [12/31 Update: I'm finally finished adding the important missing bits to this chapter--namely, the sex, you're welcome, here's some more smut--and so I can ... at long last... look at the comments you guys have blessed me with and reply!!! WOO]
> 
> Last chapter! This one has Mai's amazing art. Celebrate with the French folk song “On the Bridge of Avignon”:  
> “On the bridge of Avignon  
> We're all dancing, we're all dancing  
> On the bridge of Avignon  
> We all dance around.”

Wanda stared after Steve, her mouth in a moue of concern. Bucky was glad he wasn’t the only one trying to catch up to Steve’s sudden exit. “Oh, did I misunderstand again? It is always happening at the bad time,” she said. 

Sam shook his head with a sigh. “Nah, it’s not your fault. Steve’s being hardheaded, is all. He’ll come around or he won’t. In the meantime, we can set up the projector by the couch, put something fun on while he has his little crisis outside. And I actually am curious, Bucky, how you feel about him. We figured it’d be different since you’re not human but was that, like…some kind of weird racism?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. 

Wanda cooed quietly over the couch (it was her favorite of Steve’s pieces) and wandered about the room cataloguing the changes. Bucky sat on the low tower of boxes still in front of the fireplace and chewed on his lip in thought. “It is different, I think. But I dunno. I don’t have any comparison for how I feel about Steve, since before now, ya know, I’ve just been taking care of family. I can’t explain it. I…I just want him, as much of him as I can get,” he shrugged and trailed off.

Sam nodded thoughtfully, but Wanda was staring sharply at something behind Bucky. “J—Bucky. You are a house spirit, yes? Your energy, it is coming from the home. Like the Sokovian _dedek_. Why has Steve not swept your hearth clean for you?”

He himself had been silently grousing about this exact thing for months and his heart melted at Wanda’s recognition, but he still felt the inexplicable urge to defend Steve. “He’s—he doesn’t know about all that.”

“Got the food, brought some plates an’ stuff,” Steve announced with brisk cheeriness as he entered the living room. Sam was looking back and forth between Bucky (shaking his head), Wanda (lifting her chin), and Steve (shifting the bags awkwardly).

“Steven, why have you not cleaned Bucky’s hearth? It is like a blood clot, having it this way. Blocked and dirty and not used. I do not wonder why he needed days to heal from dealing with those men, Steven, you must—”

Steve looked nauseous. Bucky laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Heya, Wanda. Thanks. It’s okay. He woulda done something if he knew.”

Sam began packing the projector back away, muttering about Tokyo drifting, and Steve set the food on the coffee table. “Uh, what—Wanda, how… Nah, that’s a stupid question, ain’t it?” he rubbed a hand over his face and moved to where Bucky sat. “Go on, get up,” nudging at his shoulder.

He got up and his friend began moving the boxes one by one to the other side of the room with a grim look on his face that Bucky couldn’t decipher. Wanda beamed at him sunnily and picked up her own box. Sam rolled his eyes at Bucky, mouthing ‘ _picky, picky’_ at him, but he still grabbed the last one, the heaviest, before Steve could insist on taking it. 

There was a stack of cardboard, tools, scrap wood and chunks of drywall stuffed in the fireplace, and Wanda put her hands on her hips. She reminded Bucky overwhelmingly of every disappointed mother he’d ever lived with. “Steven,” she glared. “You have been using this sacred spot as a trash can.”

Sam snorted like a horse and started to laugh. “Jesus,” he wheezed. “Jesus, Steve, you absolute walnut.”

“Shaddup, Sam!” he replied reflexively. “You’re the fuckin’ walnut.”

At that, even Bucky and Wanda had to smile.

~

Steve’d been hard at work on the fireplace for the last week—to Bucky it felt like a tiny pebble was stuck between the toe beans of his cat form, or a piece of food caught between his teeth. It made him tetchy and quick-tempered. He tried his best not to take it out on Steve—he’d prefer, in fact, for him not to notice anything different at all. But since Sam was focusing on his dissertation, Wanda was away on a retreat, and Natasha would know instantly what the problem was, he didn’t have many options for blowing off steam. 

Well. 

Bucky watched Steve’s thighs flex in his paint-stained jeans as he moved the half-empty bucket of wet cement closer to his work area. There were a _few_ options.

He hadn’t done that much to initiate sex with Steve since he showed him what it was like, having a body that wanted things—letting it, encouraging it to want things. Okay, alright, that wasn’t entirely true, because Bucky had no shame and lots of fun ideas. But recently it was like he’d run up against a wall with Steve. Ever since that time on the stairs, he waited for Steve to get them going, hoping to respect his boundaries. It would take a few hours of Bucky’s frank and deliberate flirting around the subject, hours wherein Steve would flush red and back away or change the subject awkwardly, before he snapped and pulled Bucky in for a kiss. 

And once he kissed him, it was like the floodgates opened and he couldn’t stop himself—Bucky was happily overwhelmed by the force of his desire. When they were having sex, Steve was confident and involved and _alive_ with want. He was mischievous and giving and sly and everything Bucky never knew he needed. But soon after, the wall came up again. He wasn’t cold or neglectful by any means, but. Bucky didn’t know how to explain it, other than there was some part of Steve that he was holding back, some part Bucky couldn’t reach. 

_Fuck_ , it drove him crazy. 

These past few days, though, he’d tried to cool it a little. He didn’t want to distract Steve (for once) from his work, since it was on the fireplace. He was so close to finishing—just a few more new bricks in and replacing the wood on the mantel and. He didn’t know. Bucky had never been left behind by a family before, obviously, and it wasn’t like there was an internet forum for domovye to crowdsource experiences, so…he wasn’t sure what a new person moving in and fixing the hearth would do.

All he knew was that for a reason he couldn’t place, anticipation was building in him like a flooded river running against a dam and rising, rising, rising. Every day that Steve set to work on it (“this is masonite, see, it’ll keep the arch supported” or “I have to be really careful here, because this is irreplaceable brickwork” and “can you pass me that bowl—it’s got cream of tartar and water, it’s to clean the bricks, make ‘em red again), he felt it closer and bigger, almost tangible. Almost there. 

“Hey, Buck, almost done! You wanna help put the mantel in?” Steve asked, shaking him from his thoughts. He stood up, cracked his back in a disturbing amount of places, and backed up a few steps to frame the fireplace in his hands like a viewfinder on a camera. “Whaddoya think? Does it look anything like you remember?”

He turned away from Steve to stare at it. It was a solid column of red brick, looking fresh and vibrant from the cleaning treatments, bisecting the living room wall and demanding to be the focal point of the attention of the room. It faced the front hallway’s entryway into the living room, so if you walked into the house and looked straight past the stairs and the door to the kitchen, the fireplace was framed like a painting by the door. The arch was made up of all original bricks from the Arts and Crafts Movement, making up a complex and shockingly organic pattern of flowers along its smooth curve. 

Steve had handled those extremely carefully, like an art curator with a priceless vase, an archaeologist with ancient bones, a mother with her newborn. It’d made Bucky’s heart pang to see that tenderness in Steve, made him want to kiss the knobby knuckles that laid each brick just so. It made him want to be held. It was like Bucky could feel the care put into this work doing its work on him, too. 

The fireplace, though—it was like seeing his past alive again to see it so renewed. He could almost see Naomi learning her times tables on a pillow next to it, baby Dicky skinning his knee on the rough corner, James drawing stick figures on the flat brick in the summer with a piece of charcoal to entertain little Becca. 

Steve’s hand squeezed his shoulder, and Bucky let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding. “Yeah,” he croaked. “Looks real good, Stevie.”

“Good,” Steve smiled warmly, and gave his shoulder one last squeeze before stepping over to shift the long stained mahogany hunk of wood that was to be the new mantelpiece (the previous having been beyond repair). “Now get your lazy ass over here and help me lift this into place.”

He grabbed one end and together they slid it into its new spot. As they did so, he felt something move like shifting tumblers inside him—like a key turning in a lock, or in a door. He gasped quietly. 

Steve gave him a questioning look, but Bucky didn’t fuckin’ know either, so he shrugged and offered to drive the nails in. It’d be hard for Steve to do without a ladder to give him proper leverage, but he’d never take the help if he thought Bucky thought he needed it, so instead Bucky said, “Hey, I been pent up in this house since 1911, lemme let off some steam.”

Steve chuckled and held his hands up, granting permission, “Knock yourself out.”

After the mantel was secure, they both stepped back to look at it proudly, hands on their hips. “Looks nice,” Steve sighed.

“Yeah. Whoa, where you goin’?” he asked, because Steve had turned to leave the room. 

He gave Bucky a bemused look. “To shower, and then heat up some dinner. It’s almost five o’clock, I didn’t even realize. Wanted to get it done, I think.”

The place in Bucky that had itched all week while Steve was working on the fireplace, that felt like floodwaters rising against a dam, that just now shifted at the placing of the mantel…That place was urgent and open—an expectant mouth, a fresh wound. Steve was not allowed to leave with it like that. It wasn’t safe. Something needed to happen. 

“No!” he blurted, hand held halfway out towards him. 

Steve paused. “What?”

He didn’t know what. _Fuck, this is so dumb._

Bucky ran a hand tiredly over his face. “I’m not sure. Just…it’s a d-domovoi thing, I think. Just don’t leave, yet. Sorry,” he finished, mouth twisted ruefully.

If he thought Steve would brush him off—he’d been working all day and surely he was sore and sweaty and hungry and he had given him no reason at all to listen—he was proved wrong. Steve covered the feet between them in three quick strides and his hands immediately coming up to grip Bucky’s biceps tightly. He felt himself relax a little, knowing he had some time to figure this out. “You don’t gotta be sorry, Buck. Is it—uh. Do you have any ideas, though? We just gotta stay in this room for now?”

The small, rhythmic circles his thumbs were making on his arms were distracting, and the way Steve had to look up at him made the handsome shape of his jaw stand out even more than usual. He had that little wrinkle between his eyebrows that he got when he was concerned or doing a sudoku puzzle. 

_Shit, his eyes are blue_. 

“Buck?”

“Whahuh?” Bucky replied stupidly.

Steve snorted and knocked on his head. “Hello, earth to Bucky. I said, is it a tradition kind of thing or a safety hazard?”

“Uhhmm,” he swallowed dryly and coughed, trying to catch up.“Little o’ both, I think. Something about the fireplace. We should, we should light a fire in it. You should, I mean.”

“What,” Steve squinted, “right now? I don’t—think I have any firewood.”

Bucky gestured to the pile of scrap wood in the corner of the room. “Looks like some of that would catch fire fine.”

“This is really important to you,” Steve said, tilting his head and getting the same look in his eyes he had the previous week, when he had all the disparate pieces of a new chair laid out in front of him and he only had to put them together to be done.

“ _Yes_ ,” Bucky said, desperately. 

“Okay,” he nodded, gathered some pieces from the scrap pile and laid them in the grate in as close to a teepee shape as he could manage. He tore up some newspapers, placed them in the center for the tinder, and took out a lighter. 

“Not that I’m eager to interrupt,” Bucky said, interrupting, “but why do you have a lighter? You have asthma. You should not be smoking.”

Steve looked like he might have the beginnings of a blush. “I don’t. Lighters are just useful to have around. Lots of people use them.”

“Oh. I get it. Sure, lots of people,” Bucky smirked, trailing his hand over Steve’s shoulders as he passed and crouched next to him. “Lots of attractive people outside bars who need a light, huh?”

“It’s only polite to offer!” Steve protested, and Bucky laughed. He flushed at the realization that he had been baited. “Yeah, yeah. Shaddup while I light your dumb fire.”

He shut up. Steve lit the newspaper at several places and blew on it, urging the little licks of flame higher and hotter. 

Something like the polar opposite of an explosion went off inside Bucky. 

Imagine coming home. 

You have been working outside in the chill wind with no gloves and a thin patchy coat for days and days and weeks and weeks. Every part of you has turned to fantasizing to survive—trying to hold the texture of your cat’s fur in your mind and the taste of spiced cider in your mouth. Sometimes it’s enough to get you through an hour, and sometimes it is not. When it is not, the cold replaces your bone marrow. When it is not, there is nothing keeping you going but the belief that home is not a fantasy at all but will be there, present and real and waiting for you to enter. 

Imagine walking up the steps, bones aching, tired, tired. Imagine the door open for you, the sudden shock of warmth, the simple glory of an animal happy to love you. Imagine wrapping up in blanket after blanket, belly full of warmth. Imagine a fire licking along a log. 

Imagine never, ever leaving.

Imagine all, all, all, all of this tied up in one creature—one person to gather all the bonds of a family together. 

A family—Bucky would have laughed if he could feel his toes. He wasn’t sure he was even in the material realm still. Because of course— _of course_ it needed to be Steve who lit the fire. Now Bucky could feel him, just as he had felt every Barnes as soon as they were born. Now he was family. 

Now Bucky _belonged_ again.

Steve stared at him with wide eyes, his form far away and vibrating oddly. “Bucky,” he whispered, “you’re floating.”

He was, yes, his curls just barely brushing up against the ceiling. _He_ was the one shaking, not Steve. He’d never felt so full; his whole body was like a completed circuit. He looked down at him. “Remember when I could barely keep a fire going for five seconds?”

“Back when I tried an exorcism? What I remember is being terrified I would catch on fire, but I’ll go with yeah, sure.”

Bucky grinned. “Watch what I can do _now_ ,” he said. 

And he spread his hands. And he set the world on fire. 

For a single moment, Steve yelled in fear, before he realized the fire had no heat. Every inch of the room was lit with variegated spectrums of color—colors fire shouldn’t usually be, but was gorgeous blending together as it was. A vortex of purple and orange swirled around Bucky like a miniature weather system. Little green sparks zoomed around Steve and playfully tugged at his clothes and ears, dull pinpricks on his skin. Pink flames licked along the floor in a slowly progressing line, like the tide rolling in. 

In the center of it all, Bucky. Bucky with his dark curls tousled by sparks, grinning madly, and feeling so, so alive. He looked at Steve, hoping he wasn’t scared, hoping he _understood_. Steve was staring up at him in plain awe, occasionally glancing around to catalogue all the shapes and colors with those quick artist’s eyes. 

“Hey,” Bucky said, to get him to look back at him, enjoying the weight of that stare. “Get up here, Rogers.”

Steve’s mouth tilted in a small crooked smile. “Sure. No problem,” he said, and didn’t move. 

“I mean it. Give me your hand,” he said, and reached down to take it as it was offered, however grudgingly. 

He tugged once, sharply, and caught Steve in his arms when gravity lost its grip on him. Steve grabbed his shoulder and back in both hands with desperate strength, gasping. He huffed his laughter into Bucky’s neck—perhaps unwilling to look down or around them. It sent a pure thrill up his spine to feel Steve’s joy against his skin, now that he could feel his presence like a little yellow fire inside too. 

“This is so crazy,” Steve croaked, finally looking around. 

When he looked down, he swallowed hard and hooked his right foot firmly around the back of Bucky’s calf. His eyes softened while he took in the flames dancing around them like their own personal _aurora borealis._ “How long can you keep this up?”

Bucky shrugged. “No idea. I’ve never tried to do something like this at all before. But…I feel good. Strong. I could probably manage a few hours before something might get burned.”

“And you just… made all this up? Bucky, it’s. This is amazing.”

  
  
_Art by[maichan](https://maichan808.tumblr.com)_   


Flickering colors reflected in Steve’s eyes, making the normally cornflower blue of them mysterious and changeable. It gave him the likeness of a fae, Bucky thought, and he couldn’t keep his thumb from brushing softly along Steve’s lower lip. His mouth opened in a rough inhale in response. 

“Steve,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. 

“Yeah?” Steve breathed, as though afraid if he moved his mouth too much, that Bucky’s thumb would move from its current place.

“Oh,” Bucky laughed a little, “nothing. I just wanted to say your name.”

At that, Steve pulled his head down in one firm motion to crush their lips together. Bucky inhaled sharply, shocked, frozen, before he groaned and melted down into Steve’s warmth, cradling his jaw and stroking against it with his thumb. 

It was a strangely desperate kiss, as though the house really were on fire around them, as though the world were in danger of ending. Bucky was caught up in the urgency, bit into Steve’s mouth a little too roughly—“ow,” he whispered, and then laughed and shushed Bucky’s apologies, lapping them up with his tongue in slow, drugging movements.

After that, they kissed less like the world was ending and more like each brush of their lips, each gentle squeeze of their fingers, each gentle interaction of teeth and tongue were the building blocks to create their own world, apart and safe and containing only this moment. 

The lights around them sputtered and died as Bucky felt himself care less and less about keeping them going. He only noticed they landed on solid ground when Steve unhooked his foot from around his leg and began to pull him backwards with him. He was only content once he’d gotten Bucky to crowd him against the wall and trap him properly there.

Not that he _minded_ , having his little yellow flame all to himself, pressed against him from chest to thighs. Bucky nudged his legs apart and put his thigh between them for him to ride. He could feel his interest already, and damn did he ever feel smug about that. Steve threw his head back in a gasp, eyelashes fluttering like a golden butterfly in the flickering light of the fire in the grate. Bucky ran his nose along that bared throat, then his lips with barest grazes of teeth and tongue, drawing on what he remembered liking, what he knew Steve liked. Steve grunted into his ear, hands running up the backs of his arms and up to give his hair a stern tug to make him look up. 

“Buck,” he said, voice even lower than usual. “We’re gonna haveta do this on a bed.”

Bucky hummed thoughtfully and then grinned. He’d never tried this before but he was positive he had enough energy for it. Steve squinted at him. “What’re you thinkin’ in that thick head o’ yours?”

He grumbled when he removed his thigh and turned, expecting to head up the hallway to the stairs, but Bucky caught his hand and tugged. “Nah, pal, c’mere,” he said, and pulled Steve back against him. “Put your feet on mine, okay? Put your arms around me and keep your eyes _shut_ , no matter what. We’re takin’ the fast way.”

Steve stared at him for a few seconds and Bucky shifted, realizing how much trust he was asking him to put in his newly restored abilities. But he wrapped his arms around his waist and buried his face in Bucky’s chest, and made an assenting hum. He took a deep breath and stepped with Steve over There. It took some focus not to stretch out a little, to stay in his human form and anchored to where Steve’s hands pressed into his back. What surprised him was seeing, briefly, the bright little licking line of fire connecting them. Bucky closed his eyes to focus, and shifted them back to the material plane right above the bed, where they fell in a disorganized tangle of limbs. 

Steve elbowed him. “You’re a jerk, Barnes.”

Bucky pouted. “I thought we said no last names in bed,” he said, and rolled them so he could lean over Steve. He kissed his way up his chest and pulled his shirt off as he went, and—there was something unfettered about Steve now, like his walls were down, finally, finally. Bucky was going to swallow him whole.

He did the next best thing—Steve showed him how to finger him open, the motions familiar but entirely more erotic now that he got to watch his chest rise and fall at each sensation, even as he talked him through it until Steve felt ready. He let out a deep sigh, like he was being relieved of a burden, when Bucky moved into him one cautious stroke at a time. Steve urged him on, laughing.

 _Fucking shitpants, how do people do anything else?_ he thought, while they found their rhythm. And when they found it, they _found_ it. Houses could rise and fall around them for all he cared—for once, in his long life, all his focus had narrowed to this moment and this body against his. 

“Buck, Bucky,” Steve gasped, legs wrapped around his back to pull him closer than close. Bucky gasped in time with their movements, licked beads of sweat from the dip in Steve’s collarbone and loved not knowing which of them it belonged to. Steve tilted his jaw so their eyes met. “After this, I want you…”

They were already linked in every way they could be—lips meeting, bodies intertwined, hearth ablaze and tying him to Steve—and he didn’t know what more he could give, but, hearing the need in his rumbling timbre, an urgent thrill ran through him. Whatever Steve wanted, Bucky wanted to give it. He nodded quickly, kissed him, pressed his thumb to his bottom lip. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, consent thrice given and as binding as a name. “Sweetheart, it’s yours, whatever you want of me.”

Steve laughed a little, bit at the pad of his thumb teasingly. “You donneven know what I’m askin’ for.”

“Don’t matter, but I’ll humor you. What’s my Stevie want me to do?” he smirked at the predictable flash of rebellion in Steve’s eyes at even the hint of a patronizing tone, and had a wonderful, evil idea. 

Just because Bucky would give the man everything in less than a heartbeat didn’t mean he couldn’t tease him a little first.

Before Steve could take over, Bucky scraped his nails across Steve’s scalp the way he’d learned he liked. He’d been keeping them longer than his usual preference lately. But it was more than worth it to hear the sound Steve made when he slowed his hips— _gods_ , he would never get used to how intense sex felt—and scratched hard through his hair, unable to keep the slow pace when he let out a gorgeous groaning sigh and clenched around him. 

“This what you want, huh, Stevie?” Bucky asked, breathless despite himself.

Steve looked like a masterwork painting under him—no. He was like the moving breathing living concept of art. Bucky could hardly focus on teasing him when Steve had angles like an iceberg and curves like a river, skin cream and hair cornsilk, mouth a ripe berry bursting open and eyes that stole the blue from the sky. 

“Fuckin’ jerk,” Steve huffed, eyelashes fluttering at the angle Bucky had finally found and was exploiting with reckless enthusiasm. “Wasn’t done—hah—talking.” 

Bucky tried for a laugh but he was more than a little gone in the head and all he could focus on was the place their bodies met and the fan of those eyelashes across pleasure-pinked cheeks. “Your eyelashes could knock the gods to their knees, fuck, Steve,” he blurted out, sex-addled idiot that he was. 

Steve’s cheeks flushed darker and he brushed at them, marveling at the heat, the way sweat had stained his hair nearly brown, at being here and welcomed and known. Steve’s eyes darkened further at whatever expression was on Bucky’s face and he shoved Bucky out, off and onto his back. Before he had even a second to panic, Steve settled over him and sat—just shy of where Bucky very much wanted him.

He pouted, but still, that dusky blush charmed him and he stroked a hand along that strong jaw, pressed again into Steve’s lip.

Steve bit at his thumb, sharper and meaner this time, but continued, “Probably ain’t fair to ask right now, but…” he gestured to his position above Bucky and grinned “Now that I got ya pinned, might as well. I want this to be a relationship, Buck. I don’t just want sex with you, I want—god help me, I want everything with ya,” he finished. 

Steve ducked from Bucky’s gaze to watch his hands trace Bucky’s pecs in a way he probably thought was soothing, but was, in fact, brutally unfair. 

Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed. He caught his wrists to still them, for both their benefit, and brushed Steve’s hair back till their eyes caught again. “Steve, you punk—we’ve. What d’ya think we’ve been doing? Of course I want everything with you,” he said, and watched Steve’s eyes widen with surprise. 

Steve tackled him, nearly cutting his mouth on his teeth as they kissed. Bucky sank into him again and they both moaned at the sensation—and unlike before, they wasted no time. They rushed headlong into every feeling. It didn’t take long for them to reach the edge of their mutual cliff, foreheads touching, sharing air and spit and pleasure. They leapt together over the side and shook with joy until the golden light of the morning sun brought them warmly back into themselves.

Steve cleaned them off with a towel and Bucky just let himself roll around in this very good feeling for a few minutes. When he opened his eyes, though, Steve was squinting, clearly thinking hard now that he wasn’t distracted by his dick. Because gods forbid Steven Grant Rogers take the easy path to anything.

“What did ya mean, ‘of course’? I asked you to think about what you wanted with me, an’ you said just sex. So that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s just been—casual sex, because you said,” he repeated mulishly.

Bucky could not believe how dumb humans were sometimes. “Was it just casual sex to you?”

“No!”

“Okay then. It wasn’t ‘just sex’ for me either. I practically went feral on ya when you were goin’ out with other people. We’ve been exclusively having sex with each other for over a month. I make you coffee every morning and sleep in your bed every night—you know I don’t need sleep, right? I’m just doing it to feel close to ya. What about that isn’t a relationship?” Bucky asked, propping his head up on his elbow and enjoying how distracted Steve got by his biceps before he visibly reined himself in.

Steve huffed. His mouth pursed in that cute prissy moue it got when he was really put out. Bucky thought he just didn’t like being wrong. “It’s not a relationship unless you both agree to be in a relationship, Buck.”

He smiled. He loved his prissy, little shit boyfriend. “Okay then. I agree.”

Steve opened and closed his mouth, realized he had both won and lost his argument, glared, and lay back down with a dramatic huff. “Fine.”

Bucky poked him in the ribs, where he knew he was most ticklish. “Your turn to agree.”

“ _Jesus!_ ” Steve yelped, and nearly kneed Bucky in the nuts. “Yes, you monumental _asshole_ , you’re my problem now.”

Despite his tone, the side of his mouth drew inexorably upward, shy and happy. Bucky grinned cheerfully over at him and tugged him closer to cuddle. The rest of the day rolled before them, kind and light-filled.

—————————————————————————

“Hey—whoa, that’s. That’s a tree ya got there, Wanda, uh. C’mon in,” Steve said. 

The house was (almost) finished, so Steve was having everyone over for a housewarming party. Bucky was back in the kitchen with his Ma, making some kind of alcoholic fruit punch. He’d said that everyone should bring their favorite dish and their favorite person, figuring he could order takeout if everyone brought potato chips. Ma came an hour early to help set up and had brought her hairstylist, Darcy. The second they met eyes, Darcy burst into a giant grin and tried to hug him. Steve ducked out of it and pointed at her warningly. “I don’t know why the fuck you’re everywhere I go now, but I do not appreciate you looping my Ma into it.”

Ma had slapped him over the head for that. Darcy had waggled her eyebrows at him, and he left to stay at the door and welcome everyone in. (It wasn’t running if he had a job to do.)

Wanda’s face was completely blocked by the giant waxy leaves of the tree she was holding, but she walked it straight into the kitchen and set it down by the window, as if she’d been planning where it should go for weeks. “Yes, hello, Steve. Thank you for having me. This is a ficus. Every new home needs some new life, and plants are much easier to care for than babies,” she said wryly.

He laughed, but she leaned in and passed him a packet of papers. “But still, they need care. Here are the instructions. Don’t let this plant die, Steve. It would be very bad luck,” she finished in an ominous tone, and swept off in her multi-layered skirt before he could figure out if she was joking. 

He met Bucky’s eyes across the kitchen and felt his heart speed up from that alone. Bucky winked at him and he smiled, cheeks heating, before he heard a pounding on the door.

“Oh—” they heard Wanda say, from the entryway. “I am sorry, Pietro, I forgot you in the car again.”

Steve rounded the corner to see Pietro carrying a huge brown growler and a tupperware of Wanda’s no-bakes and rolling his eyes at his sister. “You would forget your brother but god forbid you forget the fungus.”

“It’s a _ficus_ , Pietro, you know this,” Wanda huffed.

“Hey, welcome,” Steve said. “You can put that in the kitchen if ya want.”

“This? Oh no, my friend, this is your new favorite beer!” he announced grandly, passing the tupperware carelessly off to Wanda, who huffed again and walked off. 

“Oh?” he asked, a little warily. Pietro liked to home-brew IPAs and his earliest experiments had been…unfortunate tasting.

He hefted the growler with two hands as though presenting the new cub in Lion King. “This. Is my hoppiest IPA yet! It’s my housewarming gift for you, Steve. You will break it out for special date with your boyfriend! He will love it,” he said, beaming, and clapped Steve on the shoulder as he passed. “I will hide it in the linen closet so he will be surprised.”

Steve watched as he jogged up the stairs. _How the hell does he know where the linen closet is?_ he wondered.

Next came the Wilsons in a flood of boisterous well-wishes and tin foil containers of brisket and mac ’n cheese and kolaches and bacon-wrapped dates. They could probably fill up his whole living room on their own—Mama and Papa Wilson, Sam, his three sisters and their partners. He couldn’t help but get a little swept up in the procession they made to the kitchen to take over the rest of the space on his kitchen table with their offerings. He noticed Bucky eyeing them with hungry interest and elbowed him some. Bucky held his hands up, all innocence, but it was undermined by the fact that he had two of Wanda’s no-bakes in one hand.

Ma was swept up in a huge hug from Mama Wilson—Mrs. Darlene Wilson was tall as an amazon and had the shoulders to match, so Ma looked like a porcelain doll in her arms. She smiled and snuggled in. Papa Wilson shook Steve’s hand, and pulled him closer to whisper, “I got you a burr grinder but don’t tell Darlene. She thinks her gift is for all of us. I’ll go put it up in your bedroom.”

Steve laughed as he darted out of the room, and when he saw what Mama got him, he knew exactly why Tucker Wilson, practical man that he was, would give a secret gift to make up for it. She’d wrapped a large sign in a giant red bow (Bucky immediately tried to put the bow on Steve, but when he glared at him, he compromised by resting it on his own head at a rakish angle). The sign said, in looping cursive script: _Bless this home_ , with a stylized heart next to it. 

“I thought you could put it in your kitchen! It’d look so nice right over next to that window,” she smiled.

Steve stared at the kitschy aesthetic of the sign and did not know how to respond honestly without being rude. “Oh—wow, Mama…”

Sam and his sisters were stifling laughter behind their mother, because Steve was only friends with assholes. Rescue came from an unexpected quarter. Bucky stepped up to take the sign and looked—genuinely very touched by it. “This is wonderful, Mrs. Wilson. I’m honored you thought to bless us like this, it’s—Steve’s real lucky to know you, an’ I am too.”

“Ohhh,” Mama breathed and the look on Sam’s face felt like vindication. “Well. None of that, you’re part of the family now, just like the Rogers. Call me Mama.”

He ducked his head shyly and looked up at her through the curls that fell just over his brow. “That means a lot ta me, ah, um, Mama. I’ll make sure we put this somewhere nice.”

 _Jesus,_ Steve thought, a little gobsmacked, _Is he blushing??_

Mama shared a look with Ma that he wished he hadn’t seen, and produced two bottles of red wine from her purse. “One of these was for you two, Stevie baby, but you won’t mind if me and your Ma steal them to share, will you?”

Steve shrugged. Mama patted him on the cheek in a way that made him feel like a five year old being pacified, and his Ma followed her out to the front porch, tousling his hair as she passed. Bucky was still staring down at the sign, tracing the letters with a cute smile on his face. Steve’s heart gave a sharp pang at the soft expression and he sighed at himself.

“You have terrible taste,” Steve said, sidling up to him and giving him a peck on the cheek. 

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “Oh—you mean what the sign looks like. I keep forgetting what stuff you do and don’t know about. This is a blessing, Steve. From a matron, no less. If you didn’t have me this might keep you safe all on its own.”

“Buck. This is the kind of sign you pick up at a general store for a White Elephant gift exchange. If I didn’t know Mama and how much she means it, I’d think this was Sam trolling me,” he said, sinking into his boyfriend’s side. Bucky put an arm around him to bring him closer and rested his chin on Steve’s head.

“For someone so smart, you sure are an idiot, Rogers. This was hand-painted. She even signed and dated the back corner. She put intent in this, she prayed over it. That holds a lotta metaphysical weight,” he murmured, and Steve felt suddenly very ungrateful. 

“Oh,” he said. Bucky hummed, kissed his forehead, and then let him lean back to look at him. “We should send some thank you cards tomorrow.”

His boyfriend (it had been several weeks since they’d figured their shit out, but Steve still felt a little thrill at the word) thumbed at his bottom lip the way he always did when he was about to kiss him, and brushed their mouths together sweetly. “Smart man,” he said, hand tracing back along Steve’s jaw like he couldn’t help himself.

“Yo, lovebirds, catch,” called Sam, and they looked up in time to see a small object flying in their direction like he was pitching a fastball special. 

Steve started, but Bucky’s finger brushed back and forth across his pulse point and he felt the telltale tunneling of the world’s focus, the light turning flat and conversation around them going utterly silent. He looked up at Bucky with wide eyes. “You can do it on purpose now?”

He preened, smug. “I’ve been practicing while you sleep. I can never do it without touching you, though,” he said with a significant look that Steve ignored. Bucky and his weird ideas about Steve being magic. Steve was as about as magical as a burnt out lightbulb.

“Okay, but, uh. There’s too many people round right now, Buck. What’re—oh,” he murmured, mesmerized, as Bucky changed the pattern of his thumb from brushing to tapping, and the room started and stopped and started again in an oscillating wave of sound and movement. The object Sam had thrown—a little pink dinosaur—ended up hovering just in front of Steve’s nose. 

“Ready?” Bucky asked, way too excited. “On three, move your head to the left and I’ll catch it. One, two, _three_!”

Time resumed, with another flash of light and the rush of their words sounding at once from the floor by their feet, and he ducked. He giggled as he heard Sam say, “How the hell’d you catch that?”

He felt more than heard, his head on Bucky’s chest as it was, Bucky say in a very condescending tone, “Samuel, I invented baseball.”

Sam wandered over and squinted at him. “You know the worst thing about you, Barnes? I can’t definitively say there’s no way you invented baseball. And that just ain’t fair. Steve, you let your boyfriend lie to you like this?”

Steve smirked. “Who said it’s a lie?”

Sam groaned. “You guys are even worse when you’re all happy and official. I didn’t think it was possible.”

“What is this?” Bucky asked, taking his arm from around Steve to fiddle with the dinosaur. It came apart to reveal a USB drive. He stared at it. “Fuck, did I break it?”

Steve and Sam both laughed. “Nah, man. It’s a playlist. I made it to commemorate your extremely cheesy relationship. Congrats.”

Bucky was frowning at the two pieces in his hand like he was waiting for music to come out of it. Steve heard Natasha say from behind him, “He’s still a relic of the 90s, Steve, you’ll have to show him how those work.”

“Nat!” he smiled, and hugged her. She was still in her work clothes, though she’d already taken her shoes off. “You made it. Wasn’t sure you’d be able to.”

“And miss Darlene’s kolaches? No way. She and Sarah are drinking straight out of their wine bottles on the porch, by the way. I almost didn’t make it through with your gift,” she said, and presented Bucky with a bottle of vodka covered in Cyrillic. 

His face lit up as he took it. “This is the real shit!”

Nat nodded, like _What else_. “Put it in the freezer for a Day. A bad one or a good one, take your pick,” she said, and Sam laughed. “I have this for you too. It wasn’t just my idea, but I’m the lawyer so they nominated me to deal with the paperwork,” she said, and then passed Steve one of those big pinkish red envelopes. “It’s for Bucky, mostly. But I think it’ll benefit you both.”

Steve opened it and slid the stack of papers out. Bucky was sipping some of Ma’s punch but glanced curiously over when he went still against him. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s,” Steve swallowed. “Natasha, you didn’t do anything illegal to get this, did you?”

She laughed, a good strong belly laugh. “Oh Steve. You precious summer child.”

“What is it?” Bucky asked again, and leaned to get a look for himself. Steve tilted it towards him. “Looks like some tax shit? Wait, is this my name?”

Steve was trying not to get choked up because he knew it made Natasha uncomfortable, and Bucky seemed to be missing what a big deal this was. In the stack of papers, as he flipped, he saw a birth certificate, social security card, immunization records, high school diploma, credit scores—apparently, James Buchanan Barnes had pretty good credit. “Nat, this is—I don’t even know what to say.”

She smiled. “Say thank you, and put it in your fire safe.”

“Pffft, fire safe? Why would he need a fire safe? He has _me_ ,” Bucky bragged.

Steve hugged Natasha, hard and long, and whispered, “Thank you,” in her ear. He felt her smile against his cheek.

Sam cleared his throat. “Ya know, I helped too.”

Steve laughed and hugged him. 

Nat leaned against the counter next to Steve and Sam while Bucky crouched to put away the vodka. Steve poured her some wine—someone had brought a white, he hadn’t seen who—and they watched the little groups of people chatting, coming in to grab food or punch and dart back out to play the games happening in the living room. 

“You got a good house here, Steve. And Bucky, I mean,” Sam said. 

Steve hummed and smiled when he felt Bucky’s arm come around him again. “Yeah, I think we do. Started a little rough, needed some work, but it’s. It came together alright. Don’t ya think, Buck?”

Bucky nuzzled into his hair and murmured, “Yeah, Stevie. You did a real good job on our crooked little house.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some stuff I couldn't find ways to include: Ma gave them a copy of her recipe book with spaces for new recipes. Darcy wasn't stalking Steve, she's just bad at keeping jobs and works several part time ones, like most 20-somethings. She wears lime green nail polish and Steve's Ma wears lime green crocs--that's what they first bonded over when she was cutting Ma's hair--but Steve can't see that color with tritanopia, so. Ma helps him pick all his paint colors. Oh! The robbers were characters from TAZ: Amnesty and I was very impressed that even one of you guessed it. Is Steve actually magic? ~Hmm~ I kept this open because there will be sequels ;)
> 
> Also, a link to Sam's Mix, which is literally all songs making fun of Steve and Bucky: [Sam's Mix](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6815SkNfyn7TeEJ6r1eP0K)
> 
> If you missed it, the link to my serious playlist for the fic: [Crooked Little House Mix](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4uLYTFDy9yNy7mJlrcwmZf)
> 
> Like I said: several sequels! One of them is more of an interlude to the actual big sequel, and is about a quarter of the way done. Subscribe to the series if you wanna know when I post it, or follow me on Twitto [here](https://twitter.com/MurphyAT3).
> 
> A huge huge thank you and virtual hug to everyone who commented or kudosed this. I've been blown away by your kindness.


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